Review of Jabberwocky (1977) by Rebecca H — 04 Aug 2008

Terry Gilliam's debut film is rambling, dull and quite unpleasant, but it does have a few good ideas and strong chuckles along the way.

It's based on a nonsense poem, but it's more like a fairytale: useless cooper Dennis (Michael Palin) leaves home when his Dad dies, and goes to a castle to seek his fortunes. He hopes to marry his unpleasant and unrequiting girlfriend Griselda, who hates him. There he ends up getting roped into the fight against The Monster, slays it, wins the Princess's hand in marriage and lives happily ever after. (Well, he lives, anyway.) Add to this two Pythons (a third, Terry Jones, gets a cameo) and a sense of humour, and this film really should be excellent fun. Yet somehow it isn't, largely because of the giant bulk of nothing that comes in the middle. It's like Monty Python and the Holy Grail if you cut out Monty Python, and most of the jokes.

Anyway, as Dennis mills pointlessly around the castle for ages, nothing important happens. Then, with ten minutes to go, the plot starts. It's desperately ho-hum, despite the eventual sight of the impressive-yet-somehow-hopelessly-rubbish Jabberwock. Without an ounce of character development to invest in, all the unpleasantly visceral battles will seem completely meaningless.

Again, there are good ideas dotted around: the tradesmen in the castle are doing great business because of the Monster, so they send someone to stop Dennis from killing it. But this is right at the end, and it's far too late to rescue the movie. Other quirky notions, like rich people riding poor people from A to B, raise a smile but little else. It's difficult to be interested in this odd fantasy world, because we're hardly even interested in Dennis, let alone any of the other people on screen.

Gilliam's visual style is irrepressible (if seasick), and the jokes indicate something better that could have been. But the rest of it's so lethargic that you may not notice. Jabberwocky's done nothing to dislodge The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen from being my favourite Terry Gilliam film - and honestly, the only one I didn't hate. Watch some Monty Python instead.