I'm not sure re-releasing this the week after the World Trade Center was wise marketing, but if you want something to take your mind off reality, this is it, and probably also the most quotable movie of all time. The Pythons' first stab at a "proper" movie ensures you'll never think of King Arthur the same way, and hasn't dated at all. Right from the opening credits, which drift off into a monologue about moose, it's a fabulously surreal universe, populated by a collection of eccentrics: anarcho-collective peasants, musical knights, ferocious rabbits, taunting Frenchmen, etc. Most of the individual parts are brilliant (the Black Knight, Castle Anthrax, witch-finding), and make you forgive the tendency to wander aimlessly, and an ending which leaves you impaled on the worst cinema muzak you'll ever hear. It's entirely consistent internally too: sure, the knights only pretend to ride on horseback, but no-one bothers to point it out, so it's okay. Contemplate how the passage of time has been kind or otherwise to the troupe members - ironically, the least visible (Gilliam, seen banging coconut shells together) is now perhaps the best known. Whatever did happen to Eric Idle?
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