Python Silliness Still Holds Up in Special Two-Disc Set

Rating: 8/10 (5 March 2006)

With the opening of Mike Nichols' and Eric Idle's "Spamalot" on Broadway last month, it's a good time to revisit the 1975 comedy classic that inspired the musical. Thirty years have elapsed since its original release, but it is still a movie that veers wildly back and forth between hilariously inventive and downright silly. If you can hold on tight, it's a worthwhile ride. Almost arbitrarily about a band of adventurers looking for the famed Holy Grail, the movie is just an excuse to create a nonsensical world steeped in medieval history and comically ironic violence. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, it is typical Monty Python fare, which means a lot of clever wordplay and elaborate sight gags with big payoffs. The story begins with King Arthur and his page Patsy galloping on their invisible horses with their clapping coconut half-shells, as they search for worthy knights to take back to Camelot. From there, we meet a cast of characters that only makes sense in Python-land: an increasingly armless and legless Black Knight with a chip on his shoulder, a big Trojan Horse-like wooden rabbit, some disrespectful Frenchmen, castle-bound nymphomaniac maidens, the knights who dare to say "Ni!", a pedantic historian in the present day and even God, who seems rather impatient with the befuddled knights as He explains their quest for the Holy Grail. Amid these disparate elements, the film holds together as a clever satire on blind pious ignorance and the unquestioning acceptance of organized religion. The pacing gets sluggish toward the end, but the conclusion is riotous and just in time.
Well packaged, the two-disc set has several extras. The main menu on the first disc is funny in itself with an option for the hard of hearing. There are two alternative commentary tracks. The first is newer and features Idle, John Cleese and Michael Palin; the second was recorded much earlier with Gilliam and Jones. Both are informative but only fitfully funny since they defer to the movie. The second disc has "Mindless Sing-Alongs!", where three scenes are taken from the film and subtitled so that once can sing along to the amusing "Knights of the Round Table" (which inspired the Broadway show title, "We dine well here in Camelot, we eat ham and jam and spam a lot."), "Sir Robin" or chant along in "Monk's Chant". There is a hysterical little "educational" short entitled "How to Use Your Coconut" and two scenes dubbed in Japanese. But the highlight is a 45-minute documentary called "The Quest for the Holy Grail Locations," in which Jones and Palin explore the various film locations with humor and a sense of deserved nostalgia. Other features include a mock interview with the cast done during the filming, a Lego version of "The "Knights of the Round Table" song and various sundry features suitable primarily for a Pythonite. For non-Pythonites, the film is still worth a look at a comedy that only looks better with all the witless dreck produced now.