The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

DVD review from The Movie Snob

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (B-). How did this random movie find its way into my DVD collection? As I recall, I saw it for sale cheap and thought, "Hey, this was directed by that Time Bandits guy." It has taken well over a year for me to get around to watching it. It is a lot like Time Bandits, except this time the kid who gets to go on a bunch of extraordinary adventures is a girl named Sally (Sarah Polley, 2004's Dawn of the Dead). John Neville, an actor formerly unknown to me, plays the outrageous Baron Munchausen, who bursts onto the scene in an Austrian town under siege by the Turks in the late 1700s. He promises to bring help and sets off in a makeshift balloon. Sally stows away, and they go from adventure to adventure. Sting (Dune) and Robin Williams (Patch Adams) have cameos. It's visually remarkable, and if you liked Time Bandits you'll probably like it.