Handmade Films/Kobal/ShutterstockIn the world of science fiction cinema, Terry Gilliam is a visionary. From Brazil to 12 Monkeys to, arguably, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Gilliam’s brand of science fiction, speculative, and fantastical art is unique. Neither quirky nor serious, profound yet somewhat unpretentious, there’s a reason why his films have stood the test of time, especially among circles who are just a step outside of the mainstream. But are all of Gilliam’s genre films great? Or, more to the point, is Time Bandits, released in the US on November 6, 1981, actually a full-on classic? 45 years after this film was in theaters for the first time, it’s tough to consider Time Bandits on par with some of his greatest work. That said, this is also one of the first movies that he did that signaled the beginning of where his career would eventually go. In other words, Time Bandits might not be a work of pure Gilliam genius, but it predicts the genius that is to come. Mild spoilers ahead. The premise of Time Bandits, at least initially, could come straight out of a storybook, or, more interestingly, on paper, sits comfortably alongside several other PG-ish 1980s movies of the Amblin variety. A young boy named Kevin (Craig Warnock) lives with cartoonishly dull parents and soon finds himself swept up in a time-jumping adventure with six dwarfs: Fidgit (Kenny Baker), Strutter (Malcom Dixon), Og (Mike Edmonds), Wally (Jack Purvis), Vermin (Tiny Ross), and Randall (David Rappaport). As in The Hobbit and other fantasies, this motley crew is the ticket to adventure, though today, some might say, there are more than a few characters about little people that scan as, if not offensive outright, then, certainly, uncomfortable today. For the first 20 minutes or so of Time Bandits, when the gang encounters Napoleon (Ian Holm), short jokes are basically the entire focus of the movie, and so, if you’re not on board with the relentlessness of the same kind of joke being told over and over again, Time Bandits, today, will start to feel very tiring.Luckily, though, the movie is about this group traveling to different time periods in an effort to avoid Evil (David Warner), so the structure means we’re able to move on from one idea (or set of jokes) and into a different historical period for another set of jokes. Because Gilliam co-directed 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and was part of the creative team behind 1979’s Monty Python’s Life of Brian, it’s tempting to see Time Bandits as a part of a kind of trilogy of Python films which take comedic slants on certain parts of history. But, unlike a true Monty Python film, Time Bandits has a darker, almost Roald Dahl quality to it, in which the morality of the film lurks underneath its more arresting, or hyperbolic, portrayals.In fact, perhaps the biggest reason to praise Time Bandits today is because of its sly messaging: Over and over again, most characters in history are presented as foolish, and the bandits using the time travel magic are inconsistent when it comes to doing the right thing. Kevin has to learn, all on his own, what is right and what is wrong, across all of time and space, and there’s not really anyone there to help him. If Time Bandits is a fairy tale, it’s one that says: There are no heroes, the world was never better than it is now, and it’s also not likely to get better anytime soon.Michael Palin and Shelley Duvall in Time Bandits. | Handmade Films/Kobal/ShutterstockAll of this works, more or less, on a thematic level, and it's fairly impressive and subversive if taken on face. But the real problem with watching Time Bandits today isn’t that it doesn’t have something interesting to say; it’s that structurally, and just logistically, it feels disjointed. It’s unfair to say that the different parts of the movie feel like self-contained sketches, stitched together into a film; but when you see Shelley Duvall as a maiden named Pansy, you’ll have a hard time believing this movie has a cohesive whole. Duvall is great, to be clear, and an icon of the 80s. In 1982, she would launch Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre, which, in a sense, is the straightforward version of Time Bandits, but with fairy tales instead of historical figures. The thing is, in Time Bandits, the movie can’t stop making fun of every single historical character, to the point where everyone who isn’t Kevin or the bandits is the butt of a joke. The various famous faces, like Duvall or Sean Connery, become distracting at a certain point, because you know the movie’s gag: These people aren’t really characters, and you’re not meant to think about them as such. Instead, Time Bandits feels like Gilliam playing with actors, but using those actors as props. The story is thin and vague, and outside of Kevin, and maybe Randall, it’s hard to say the people who populate Time Bandits are memorable. It’s a memorable film, and a stalwart, underrated fantasy film of the 1980s. But is it a classic? Barely.Time Bandits streams on HBO Max.