The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)

hyped garbage

Best movie of this year hands down!

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

What a lot of imagination and work has gone into this phantasmagoric tale of an 18th-century liar saving his city from an attack by the Turks. In his haste to be a hero, Munchausen takes us on trips around the world, under the sea, and to the moon. Everything seems cluttered, fast, headlong, thoroughly overacted. The Munchuasen stories were originally used as fairy tales. Kids will enjoy the tempo and surprise of the present narrative but I suspect much of the humor will be over their heads. I may be wrong. Do kids know that "Mayday" (from French "m'aidez") is a distress call? How about "cogito ergo sum" or the twisted varient used by Robin Williams as the King of the Moon: "Cogito ergo es", "I think, therefore you is"?The kids -- especially boys approaching puberty -- will get one of the most memorable scenes: A clam shell opening to reveal a naked Uma Thurman as Botticelli's Venus.

I loved this film so much - Dawn Steel (CEO at Columbia) was busy trying to bury it - in a deadly cocktail of politics and an imminent sale of Columbia.Gilliam got trashed for going over budget, when the project had initially begun for the amount he spent.Hollywood is a jackass, as is proved by so many of these projects. This film has lasted for years because it's brilliant - anything intelligent is seen as not commercially viable at Hollywood, though they're slightly better than they used to be. Small minds in charge of great ones. History repeats itself.Hollywood chase the dollar, but end up losing more money than they think they've gained. Try to dumb it down for the lowest common denominator, and lose money spending audiences. History repeats itself.This film is excellent. It invaded my life, like Time Bandits and Brazil (Go Terry!). I have a teddy bear who I sent to my then fiancé, on the other side of the world, and he brought the teddy back with him. My husband and I call that teddy 'Berthold'. And we always make jokes about 'Beautiful Ladies!' when we see twiglet starlets.I don't know why anyone would say this film was weird - have you had no flights of fancy? No imagination at all? It's a great little fairy tale, in every sense; truth, lies, and everything in between. Remember your philosophy! What is real? Does it matter? I have often wished to separate my head from my body - I enjoyed that sequence, sooo much.Beautifully made, wonderfully madcap - I adored everything about it. So did my family. But then, we're all liars...

This is an odd movie. It's clear right from the start that this is not a logical story and almost never for a second tries to tell you otherwise. With that said, while this might put people off... I quite enjoyed it. A theater is acting out the adventures of a Baron that... To say they're exaggerated looks to be an understatement and the real Baron walks in to correct it by making the stories even weirder. However Turks invade the town and he, along with the help of the theater manager's daughter try to get his old team back (each with unexplained super speed, strength and marksmanship) and defeat them, mainly because the baron had all his treasure after a bet. The Set design, the special effects... Wow! They really stand out as being pretty good. I have seen Sarah Polley in a few things and in here she's actually quite good. The entire cast is as well (with the kookiest performance being Robin Williams who's different levels of crazy depending on whether his head's attached). As an illogical story, this did suck me in quite a lot. If I was to name a complaint it would be around the end where they cut back to the theater, literally from that point on I was taken out of the story and never quite got back to it. The best way I can describe this is if you like stories like Alice In Wonderland or The Wizard Of Oz (I'll say specifically the book, considering it's weirder than the movie but I'll say the movie may apply as well) then this is that kind of a story.

This fantasy, directed by Terry Gilliam, is full of wonderment and adventure. Seldom is a film so immersive that a viewers disbelief is not suspended, but expelled. The film is an adventure that mocks logic and common sense to glorify the romance of imagination. Imagine your child self gained knowledge, but remained passionate, naive, and light of heart; that is the essence of this film. The film Follows Baron Munchausen as he recounts his larger than life adventures that led to the current misfortune of the nation which his audience members hail. The baron must undertake one last quest to gather his old gaggle of super-human friends and save the day. Can he defeat the turks, his own cynicism, and death itself? I don't see why not, after all, anything is possible.