Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5822 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-02-17
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Turkish, Arabic, Czech, Greek, Danish, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Norwegian, Finnish, English, Hebrew, Hindi, Bulgarian, Polish, Swedish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Icelandic
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A medieval comedy-adventure starring Michael Palin and directed by Terry Gilliam, Jabberwocky is an episodic adaptation of Lewis Carroll's surreal poem. Having previously directed Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975) with Terry Jones, Jabberwocky marked Gilliam's solo directorial debut--is it coincidental that Jones is killed by the titular monster in the opening scene? Palin plays the naive Dennis Cooper, a man seeking his fortune just as the Jabberwocky is laying waste to the country. It's much the same world as Holy Grail, with all the trappings of the romantic Hollywood epic being liberally coated with literal and metaphorical muck.

Palin's character causes unwitting mayhem wherever he goes--one stand-out scene involves the destruction of a maintenance shop for damaged knights-in-armour--though as much humour comes from exposing the foibles of the people he meets. And those people constitute a roll call of contemporary British comedy: Harry H Corbett as a sex-mad squire, Warren Mitchell's Mr Fishfinger, plus Annette Badland, Max Wall, John Le Mesurier, Rodney Bewes, John Bird, Neil Innes and John Gorman. Jabberwocky lacks the hilarity of Holy Grail, but is a consistently amusing, exceptionally atmospheric, gleefully gory yarn which points the way to Gilliam's Time Bandits (1981) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).

On the DVD Jabberwocky is distinguished by an engaging and enthusiastic commentary from Gilliam and Palin, in which they delight in the amazing cast and ponder how such a handsome film was made. Otherwise the extras are a short sketch-to-screen comparison, three posters and three trailers (only one for Jabberwocky). Transferred anamorphically enhanced at 1.77:1, the picture is variable, with many beautifully lit indoor scenes looking fine, while other exterior, daylight shots appear washed out. There is some minor print damage. The sound is a revelation for a low-budget 1970s film originally released in mono. Given a full Dolby Digital 5.1 remix the tremendously detailed, rich and involving soundscape really brings Gilliam's world alive and puts many much more recent and expensive titles to shame. --Gary S Dalkin

Special Features
Feature length commentary by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin
Sketch to Scene Comparisons
International Poster Gallery
Original Theatrical Trailer
Cross Promo Trailers

Language: English German Subtitles: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portugese, Swedish, Turkish
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Mono
Aspect Ratio Anamorphic - 1.85:1

Synopsis
Opening with a quote from Lewis Carroll's classic nonsensical poem, Terry Gilliam's JABBERWOCKY is a darkly comic medieval masterpiece about a monster wreaking havoc on helpless villages. Michael Palin stars as Dennis Cooper, a happy-go-lucky ne'er-do-well stock taker who becomes the unlikely hero in a castle's efforts to defeat the great green beast. The unwitting and pathetic Dennis is in love with Griselda, the furthest thing from a classic princess heroine that film has ever seen. However, she wants nothing to do with Dennis, who is renounced by his father on his deathbed, setting him off on a hysterical adventure that winds up with him facing off against the monster itself. The jousting scenes are particularly funny--and very gruesome, lending the film its seriocomic tone that had the audience somewhat baffled at first, although it's now much loved. The film is a brilliant parody of medieval epics, featuring lavish costumes, a medieval score, and terrific sets. Monty Python regulars Terry Jones and Neil Innes make cameo appearances, as does director Gilliam himself.

Customer Reviews

My absolute favourite movie!
Based on Lewis Carrol's 'The Jabberwock', Terry Gilliam unleashes the full force of his creative talents in this brilliant film.
We follow the adventures of Dennis Cooper, besotted with love for the gruesome Griselda Fishfinger, as he is disowned by his dying father and goes off to seek his fortune in the city. The city is however besieged by the eponymous monster, so the king (played to wonderful effect by Max Wall) arranges a tourney to select the best knight to kill the beast. Of course, Dennis is carried along and wins the day.
Doresn't sound much of a story, does it? - but the intricately detailed sets, the wonderful staged humour and brilliant direction make this a cut and a half above anything else in the genre. It knocks the Monty Python films into a cocked hat - and they are GOOD! Not for nothing did this film win the best comedy at Montreux. Particularly good performances from Max Wall, John leMesurier, Harry H Corbett and of course, Michael Palin, who just IS Dennis.
I don't understand how a great film like this has been allowed to fall out of circulation. I'd give it 10 stars if I could.

coopering? that's no life for a man
Don't write this off as failed Python. In the entertaining commentary on this disk, TG and Michael Palin not only state that they were trying to get away from the Python style with this film, but even that they think there are too many gags in it. I wouldn't go so far as that; Lewis Carroll's eerie source poem doesn't really have a great bearing on this story, but what they share is an ambiguous tone somewhere between epic, comic and surreal. All Gilliam's early films are about the relationship between real and fantasy worlds, and this is really no exception: Palin is the modern-minded mediocrity unwittingly (and unwillingly) caught up in a fairy tale.

Visually there's a certain similarity to `Holy Grail' (this is far more accomplished); in comedy terms, the closest thing is Palin's quirky, understated `Ripping Yarns' - but that doesn't have the same deep, ineluctable strangeness. In all honesty there's no other film like this. Just see the `you might also like' films trailed on the disc - `First Knight' and `Knight's Tale'! Good grief.

I'm also indebted to the commentary for the following fascinating trivia: TG's `diamond mine' character was originally to have been played by Dudley Moore; both the Black Knight and Palin's master are played by David Prowse (of Darth Vader fame), voices by Max Wall (King Bruno); and John Boorman apparently showed the film a dozen times to his crew before making Excalibur. How's that for a recommendation?

Schoolboys Humour in the High Middle Ages
Jabberwocky has much of the Python about it, but takes its story much more seriously - perhaps more seriously than it should. I like medieval costume films that juxtapose modern life with the rubbish of a mythic Middle Ages and, being a sucker for Zeffirelli's vision, admire it being satirised here as it was later in A Knight's Tale. This is no 'Brother Sun Sister Moon' or 'Romeo and Juliet'; this is a schmaltz-free zone, a grim-but-true Middle Ages played for laughs. Here we meet the all-but senile Bruno the Questionable and the achingly ugly Griselda, with Michael Palin as the luckless commoner-hero Dennis who defeats the creaking monster Jabberwocky. There are parodies of Jaws that manage to be tense and funny in the way the monster's pov scans through the trees, some moments of real disgust with steaming corpses - the blood-spattering tournament is very good - and a lot of questions raised about toilet arrangements in the High Middle Ages. Schoolboy humour with a touch of the bizarre. But it is over-long, and lacks the wacky sketch-show pace of Life of Brian - and comparisons with Monty Python and the Holy Grail are inevitable, with this film usually coming off the worst. Funny? Certainly; but not Holy Grail funny.