It’s Time to Quest
A tale for the ages, a king on a quest for the greatest treasure of all time, the holy grail. This comedy, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, is set to be exactly that a comedy. I laughed through this movie from beginning to end, even the credits. This movie is written and performed by the python players: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The film is set in England A.D. 932. This must have been a very strange time for historians, possibly why we don’t learn of it in school.

Everything about this movie is unique. The fight with the black knight is unlike any I’ve seen. The camera angles make it seem both intense and humorous. After his fight with the black knight King Arthur comes across a scientist, who is taking part in a witch trial. They devise a way of discovering if the girl is a witch by comparing her weight to that of a duck. As with many of the performances done by the python players, there are many “in between scenes” that are animated. Some of which have a completely different story, while others add to the main story. The French are both insulting and funny. As King Arthur and his knights attack the castle they are forced to “run away!”

Many of the great movies today involve action with little bits of comedy scattered through the movie. Monty python is the exact opposite of this, it’s comedy with little bits of action scattered through the movie. The comedy in this movie is very unique and I believe that it is still unmatched even to this day. One of the important things in the movie is a question asked at the beginning of the movie, involving swallows and coconuts.

There are very few special effects used for this movie. Many of which are used in one scene with Time the Enchanter, who summons fire. Everything in the movie is done very simply. For a very ferocious beast known as the evil rabbit. They used a stuffed animal. This adds to the humor of the entire movie; many of the jokes are straight forward so there is nothing that really needs to be thought through.

There is so much involved in this movie. This review covers very little because many of the scenes are difficult to explain without prior knowledge of the movie. It is very hard to judge the acting in this movie since it is a comedy, but I find that the actors did a very good job of keeping a straight face through everything. I find this movie to be absolutely fascinating, how the python players thought of this I’ll never know. I consider this to be a must see movie for comedy fans.