Not just non-stop hilarity

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2001)

WARNING `Spoilers'
Probably the greatest comedy of all-time (up there with my personal favorites of Annie Hall and Dr. Strangelove) not simply because I have to stop it ten minutes into the film because my abdominals are aching from laughter. No, its because like all good movies it offers more than just two hours of entertainment. It is simple yet complex, stupid but quite intelligent. Let me elaborate: like all Monty Python production their comedy is always abstract and willing to push the boundaries of the absurd.
The premise is simple: it is satire of the Arthurian legend where King Arthur bands together the knights of the round table to go on a quest to seek the holy grail. We are therefore introduced to a range of unlikely looking knights who each encounter various obstacles on their quest.
The absurdity begins automatically when we see that the knights do not actually ride horses but only skip along holding an imaginary reign with the squire behind the knight making the noise of horses hooves with coconut shells! I mean come on, only the insane Monty Python can come up with something so silly. However, the absurdity does no end there, others include the knights who say Ni, the killer rabbit, and what is with that scene where the guards keep seeing repeats of a charging knight? These are just some of the crazy examples.
It becomes complex when it enters the multi-spatial realm. For example, when they enter the cave and encounter the beast it turns to animation, but then the animator dies and we see vision of the actual animator have a heart attack. What's even more complex is the ending where a the host of a 20th century documentary is killed by one of the knights, then the cops arrest King Arthur, what the ... ? This mix of fiction, myth, and reality is very hard to mould together and is done superbly. This can only be done in an intelligent way, and is helped by the fact they are using a comedy genre.
All in all a fantastic comedy.