Taika Waititi’s Time Bandits is a rare remake that gets it right
Time Bandits ★★★½
Apple TV+
A romp that takes in some of the best VHS cassettes you could rent in the 1980s, Time Bandits is a comical children’s adventure rife with daft tweaks and droll asides. Ten episodes may be stretching its appeal slightly, but with a terrific double act at its core – Lisa Kudrow as a snippy temporal thief and Kal-El Tuck as the bright boy caught up in her gang’s blunders – the show does more than enough to justify both remaking Terry Gilliam’s 1981 movie and a second season.
Tadhg Murphy, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, Lisa Kudrow, Kal-El Tuck, Kiera Thompson and Rune Temte in Time Bandits. Credit: AP
It begins with a bedroom closet and a winning protagonist: 11-year-old Kevin (Tuck) is a history buff full of knowledge and no-one to share it with. His phone-obsessed parents are loving but baffled, and barely notice when a time portal opens in his room and a gang of thieves, in possession of a very special but stolen map, crash through. In their haste to escape, the plucky kid ends up with Penelope (Kudrow) and her misfit crew. They spend the first few episodes trying to dump him.
As a supergroup series – the creators are Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok), Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), and Iain Morris (The Inbetweeners) – Time Bandits feels like a homage not only to the original film, but many of the trio’s childhood faves. One episode has an affectionate nod to Back to the Future. It also understands that Kevin is smarter than his new guardians, adult authority figures should be mocked, and that exploring history is a lark. The series grows more assured with each instalment.
Penelope, Kevin and the likes of Widgit (Roger Jean Nsengiyumva), a navigator who can’t read the map, and fretful strongman Bittelig (Rune Temte) find themselves at a half-built Stonehenge or inside the Trojan Horse at Troy. Kevin’s knowledge is suddenly a blessing, and he blossoms while starting to understand the dynamics of those around him. They’re also pursued by the agents of duelling deities, the Supreme Being (Waititi) and Pure Evil (Clement). The former owned the map, the latter wants it for himself.
There’s a smidge of risk to this slapdash enterprise, even if it comes from the lasers shooting out the eyes of Pure Evil’s hellish bounty hunter, Fianna (Rachel House, one of many Kiwis on duty here). Gilliam’s film, with its Monty Python influence, was darkly fantastical and scary, but this is more child-friendly without sacrificing a tone built on deadpan retorts, silly misunderstandings, and Friends star Kudrow being hilarious as an insecure leader. It’s that rare remake that gets it right.
Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes ★★★★
Binge, Monday
A young Elizabeth Taylor.Credit: HBO/Binge
It’s impossible to sum up Elizabeth’s life and career. She was a 1940s Hollywood child star, America’s sweetheart in the 1950s and a screen goddess by the 1960s. She was married eight times (to seven men), was the first actor to ever get $US1 million for a movie (1963’s Cleopatra), and was accused of “erotic vagrancy” by the Vatican. The bullet points are endless, and thankfully they’re mostly ancillary to this intimate, fascinating documentary.
Primarily based on a series of tape-recorded interviews with journalist Richard Meryman that began in 1964 and went for years, The Lost Tapes is the story of an iconic woman explaining how she endured. Taylor went from one extreme to another: chaperoned at 17, married to the physically abusive Nicky Hilton at 18, who she divorced after an assault caused her to miscarriage. Taylor is blunt about some matters, circumspect on others. She owns what she believes are her mistakes.
Director Nanette Burstein (Hillary) surrounds the late-night conversations with a telling web of archival footage and performance clips. What shines through is Taylor’s dedication to acting, which saw her fighting for better roles and trying to harness a mercurial talent. Taylor was dismissive of modern celebrity, which she invented, shrewdly calling it “a public utility”. That insight is typical of a succinct documentary that delivers much in just 100 minutes.
The Decameron
Netflix
Zosia Mamet and Saoirse-Monica Jackson in The Decameron.Credit: Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix
Bridgerton-adjacent both as a giddy romantic romp and a snarky satire, this 14th century Black (Death) comedy follows the misadventures of a group of wealthy Florentine nobles and their servants, who hole up in a gorgeous villa to look for advantageous marriages and illicit satisfaction while hopefully avoiding the plague killing their loved ones. It looks gorgeous, but tries to be too many different shows and falls short of each option. You’re left with a talented comic cast, including Zosia Mamet (Girls) and Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Derry Girls), working up a farcical lather.
Young Woman and the Sea
Disney+
Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in Young Woman and the Sea.Credit: Elena Nenkova
This biopic about Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle (Daisy Ridley), an American swimmer who overcame considerable odds to become the first woman to swim the 34 kilometres of the English Channel in 1926, has a familiar outline. There are childhood setbacks to overcome, disbelieving authority figures and idiosyncratic mentors (hello to Stephen Graham), but that’s not an issue if the story is capably told and the film commits to its emotional triumphs. Joachim Ronning’s feature does just that, making for a rousing family film whose message of female empowerment feels contemporary.
The Acolyte
Disney+
Lee Jung-jae (right) plays a Jedi master, Sol, in The Acolyte.Credit: Lucasfilm
Now that it has concluded, it’s a seen-in-full recommendation from me for this Star Wars series, set in a previously unseen era, about a Jedi, Sol (Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae), investigating the death of a colleague. Leslye Headland’s show was deeply immersed in the Star Wars canon, but it still managed to distinguish itself. What’s more, it has a star-making turn from Manny Jacinto. Previously best known as the goofy idiot Jason on The Good Place, Jacinto is a revelation as a smuggler whose actions spring from the most compelling of motivations.
The Bank
Stan
Anthony LaPaglia in corporate thriller The Bank.
Almost 25 years after it was released, Robert Connolly’s corporate thriller about the machinations between a theoretical mathematician (David Wenham) and the bank CEO (Anthony LaPaglia) who hires him to further profits remains an entertaining feature. But looking through Netflix’s collection of Australian movies reveals less than 100 titles. Some of them are excellent, a few previously hard to find, but it feels like the streaming giant is barely scratching the surface. Having improved its commissioning of new Australian shows, Netflix could also take a positive step by scaling up its local film catalogue.
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