I thought it time I revisited this modern classic. I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I really didn’t enjoy this when I first watched it some 20 years ago, but I’ve come to understand that I wasn’t always that open to all that cinema had to offer back then. So when better to give this Christmas oddity another go then now and wow am I glad I did! It’s wonderful in every sense of the word. A beautifully grimy, lovingly choreographed dystopian nightmare fantasy. Full of chunkily wired future tech and absurd authority figures. An hysterical look at the farce of bureaucracy, perfectly rooted somewhere between it’s time and an imagined time to come. I dread to think how a film with this imagination would be handled now, probably something similar to scenes in Ready Player One and it would be horrendous for it. This works so well because everything’s real. Real sets, costume, the entire world. There’s an amazing DIY tangibility to it’s failed utopia, but it’s the strength of the characters scurrying around in its war torn noir maze that makes this so watchable. Nothing works in the future. How right Gilliam was. Pure genius. I was a fool to ever doubt.
8/10
