Sublime silliness

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 2011)

Silly boys. Those Monty Python chaps send up the King Arthur legend as only they could. Silliness from beginning to end. But silliness can be brilliant you know. And there is some truly inspired stuff in this movie. It's a farcical parody in which the laughs come fast and furious. You've got a three-headed knight. You've got a knight who just won't quit, no matter how many "flesh wounds" you inflict upon him. You have knights who sing about that silly place known as Camelot. And of course you have knights who say "Ni!" You have snooty, condescending French persons and their flying livestock. You have rabbits, both Trojan and killer. You have a unique use for coconuts and the question of whether coconuts can migrate. All of this surrounding the main plot, the quest for the Holy Grail. Oh who are we kidding, there really is no plot. The movie just careens from one gag to the next.
The movie is brilliantly performed by the Pythons, each of whom takes on multiple roles. Graham Chapman, playing King Arthur, is the glue that holds everything together. All the nonsense revolves around him. Chapman is the straight man, if this movie could be said to have such a thing. Everyone else gets to be gleefully silly while Chapman's Arthur is a little more restrained as he focuses on his noble quest. But Chapman is as funny as any of the others. Arthur's Knights of the Round Table meanwhile are a quirky, eclectic bunch and each provides plenty of laughs as they go off in their own directions seeking the Grail. And for as good as they are portraying their respective Knights it is in the other characters they also play that the Pythons perhaps shine brightest. How can you not love John Cleese's Taunting French Guard? Michael Palin is great as the peasant Dennis who bemoans the class system and questions Arthur's legitimacy. Palin also plays the King of Swamp Castle and Terry Jones does great as heir to the swamp Prince Herbert. Among other things Eric Idle is a great dead collector, shrubber and monk. Terry Gilliam has comparatively little screen time but makes his own contributions with his great animation as well as co-directing the whole thing with Jones. No small task pulling all this film's wonderful nonsense together so Gilliam and Jones have to be given a great deal of credit for their directing work. The movie is really let down only by its ending. It's jarring and abrupt, the Pythons pulling the rug out from beneath their audience. It's typical Python though. But this last bit of silliness doesn't really work. For all the great stuff that came before the movie deserved a better conclusion than this. But a misstep right at the end isn't going to detract too much from the overall experience. This movie is funny, brilliant and thoroughly enjoyable from the opening credits all the way to the end. Well near the end anyway. Easy to see why this is one of the most beloved comedies ever. This movie which sends up the great Arthurian legend has become legendary itself.