The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Aided by the luscious cinematography of Giuseppe Rotunno (one of Fellini's favorites) and the illustrious production design of Dante Ferretti, Gilliam has clearly won this round to preserve magic and wonder on the screen. [8 Mar 1989, p.E1]

Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a wondrous feat of imagination. In terms of sheer inventiveness, it makes the other movies around these days look paltry and underfed. The worlds Gilliam has created here are like the ones he created in his animations for Monty Python -- they have a majestic peculiarity. And you're constantly amazed by the freshness and eccentricity of what is pushed in front of your eyes.

Munchausen is indeed a beautiful, burgeoning, madly voluptuous movie from minute to minute and image to image; it's in the aggregate that the film fails to find the weight and the rhythm it needs to truly enthrall. [10 Mar 1989, p.A]

The narrative is highly episodic and only intermittently engaging, but Gilliam's wildly inventive mise en scene, ably assisted by production designer Dante Ferretti, is extraordinary.

I felt much the same way as I sat goggle-eyed through this endless extravaganza of visual abracadabra. It seemed entirely possible that I might die of the fidgets or old age while waiting for Baron Munchausen to kill the Turks. And yet I found myself wanting to see the end of the movie before I expired. [9 Mar 1989, p.1]

Weird to the Gilliamth degree, Munchausen just might making being an 'uneven' movie a compliment.

Despite an inspired central section involving Robin Williams as the King of the Moon and Valentina Cortese as his Queen, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a near-disaster of Ishtarish proportions. [11 Mar 1989, p.C3]

I never get tired of seeing it again and again. It's what the true art must be - rich, deep, creative, imaginative, sarcastic and wise! And even something else, always something else!

I watched this when I was young and I loved the craziness of it. Gilliam can expertly tell a story like few can. The music is great, the actors are amazing taking their roles just seriously enough to be believable but know where to add in the ham when needed, and I just learned the little girl in this was also the woman from the Dawn of the Dead remake mind blown.. There are so many great moments and set pieces. They dont make movies like this anymore.

I had the misfortune first of watching the German propaganda film before this. This is the way to tell the story. Perfect use of Gilliam's imagination and gifts as a visual filmmaker.

It is one of the great movies that is forgotten as not many people watched it. The movie has an excellent cast, is well crafted and entertaining. The story is based on the stories of the German Baron Munchhausen a noble that had fantastic adventure that are outrageous and impossible. The truth behind is that Baron Munchhausen really existed and told stories of his adventures. Because those were too outrageous or overblown for some mockery stories were made up. Those were extremely popular and so successful that his name is a synonym for liar even after centuries. Back to the movie. Story: In a by Ottoman besieged city a theater stage play about Munchhausen takes place. After a few moments an elderly man interrupts the play claiming to be the real Munchhausen and tells the audience the real story. It is rated as adventure / fantasy movie but can be also seen as comedy / satire. It tells the feats of Munchhausen famous tales while telling another story of the besieged city and its inhabitants. It is entertaining but I say it has a few lengths. The ending is incredibly good but in a way that I can see others hate it. The cast is excellent and you should recognize Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle from Monty Python (It is not a Monty Python movie or even similar). John Neville as Baron Munchhausen is excellent. He delivers all facets of the character. Also Sarah Polley as Sally Salt, Jonathan Pryce as mayor and Robin Wiliams are excellent. We have a praiseworthy performance and the whole cast delivers. The practical effects are nice and a bit of a homage to the source but I have to say some look not that good. Overall this is a nice movie I liked (but not loved). Worth a try if you can even find it as like I said it is mostly forgotten.

Terry Gilliam's troubled, over-budget portrayal of a Quixotic nobleman and his fantastical adventures. The notorious Baron appears in the audience during a stage production dedicated to his life, scolds the company for missing important details and sets the record straight in a series of farfetched recollections. Served with Gilliam's characteristically twisted sense of surreality and lavish visual know-how, Munchausen is a creative playground with no limitations. This lack of oversight frees the former Monty Python animator to get as conceptually crazy as he likes - Robin Williams drops by to play the disembodied, floating head of the ten-story-tall king of the moon, for example - but also cuts its tethers, allowing the plot to sail away like a lost balloon. The result is a sort of fairy tale theater; dreamlike and contradictory, it changes shape and meaning on the fly. The idea is to frame the whole saga as a staggering, meandering fiction, improvised in a pinch by a confused old man. Which works in theory, but also leads to a foggy finished product that doesn't connect many dots and long overstays its welcome. It all plays like a project that leapt into production without a finished screenplay, built a number of imaginative sets and costumes, recruited many of the director's famous friends and then tried to wing it under the bright lights. Exciting ideas don't always remain that way if they aren't developed into something coherent.