The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Movie Review

Before he made The Brothers Grimm, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was arguably Terry Gilliam's least popular film. The story is slow to start, takes too long to finish, and meanders almost irredeemably until finally paying off in the end. The story is adapted from the "tall tale" book of the same name, which gives us a self-proclaimed baron (John Neville in a career-defining role) who regales anyone who'll listen with story after story, each more absurd than the last. The highlight is the film's first major storytelling sequence, a flashback that involves Munchausen and his band of misfits trying to win a bet -- and doing so in amazing style. But so much of the film is so irrelevant that these feel like huge highlights lost in a sea of mediocrity and bad editing.