Review by Darklogic

Terry Gilliam stands out as a true auteur. His wit and injection of satire into his work has made him one of my favorite writer/directors. In his films he often portrays a highly structured society that is cold and pedantic, stifling freedom and imagination. In Baron Munchausen, he uses an enormous budget from Columbia Pictures to create a vivid adventure in the "late 18th century" during the "Age of Reason". Seemingly disdainful about this designation, he once again satirizes government and society, its cruelness, pettiness, and vanity, and the apparent loss of imagination to "logic and reason".

The story is highly fantastical and absurd, with an adventurer, Baron Munchausen, traveling the world in search of his old crew to end a war that he started long ago. Along the way he will go to the Moon and talk to the moon king, whose unique dichotomy of animalistic instinct and intellectual aspiration satirize the powerful. He will fall inside a volcano, meet the God Vulcan and the Goddess Venus, and later get swallowed up by a giant fish. This may sound great, and it certainly is. The reason this movie is not a 10/10, however, is due to some unfortunate weaknesses throughout. Though the scenery and special effects can be quite dazzling, and the sardonic humor amusing, this film lacks any real clarity or purpose, and the sheer madness can be tedious. At two and a half hours, it is also long. I found myself watching amused, but not engaged, all the way to the end; an ending which left me even more uncertain as to exactly what I had just seen. Great for the inner child, though you might want to keep away from real children as sexual content, poignant images (such as a man with his eyes sewn shut), and numerous beheadings might be disturbing to young ones.