Monty Python's the Meaning of Life
Rent/Purchase
Life's questions are 'answered' in a series of outrageous vignettes, beginning with a staid London insurance company which transforms before our eyes into a pirate ship. Then there's the National Health doctors who try to claim a healthy liver from a still-living donor. The world's most voracious glutton brings the art of vomiting to new heights before his spectacular demise.
What critics thought
The Pythons' return to sketch comedy lands more often than not, but original critics were split on whether its gleeful offensiveness adds up to anything coherent — some found it freshly anarchic, others saw a group coasting on shock value without a unifying satiric vision. The gross-out highs ('Mr. Creosote', 'Every Sperm Is Sacred') have lodged themselves in cultural memory even among those who found the film as a whole unfocused.
“fresh and original and delightfully offensive. What more can you ask of a comedy?”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“The strongest impressions left by this picture have less to do with its largely tedious attempts to burlesque human weakness and pomposity than with the group's failure to evolve a coherent satiric outlook.”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“the Ben Hur of sketch films, which is to say that it's a tiny bit out of proportion”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“cannot disguise the overall air of déjà vu and playing it safe.”
Steve Jenkins·The Monthly Film Bulletin
“too piecemeal and unfocused, but it possesses some of their most iconic musings and inspired madness”
Ian Nathan·Empire
Genres
Comedy, Musical
Cast & Crew
DirectorTerry Jones
StarringTerry Gilliam, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones
ComposerJohn Du Prez
Monty Python's the Meaning of Life
Life's questions are 'answered' in a series of outrageous vignettes, beginning with a staid London insurance company which transforms before our eyes into a pirate ship. Then there's the National Health doctors who try to claim a healthy liver from a still-living donor. The world's most voracious glutton brings the art of vomiting to new heights before his spectacular demise.
What critics thought
The Pythons' return to sketch comedy lands more often than not, but original critics were split on whether its gleeful offensiveness adds up to anything coherent — some found it freshly anarchic, others saw a group coasting on shock value without a unifying satiric vision. The gross-out highs ('Mr. Creosote', 'Every Sperm Is Sacred') have lodged themselves in cultural memory even among those who found the film as a whole unfocused.
“fresh and original and delightfully offensive. What more can you ask of a comedy?”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“The strongest impressions left by this picture have less to do with its largely tedious attempts to burlesque human weakness and pomposity than with the group's failure to evolve a coherent satiric outlook.”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“the Ben Hur of sketch films, which is to say that it's a tiny bit out of proportion”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“cannot disguise the overall air of déjà vu and playing it safe.”
Steve Jenkins·The Monthly Film Bulletin
“too piecemeal and unfocused, but it possesses some of their most iconic musings and inspired madness”
Ian Nathan·Empire
Genres
Comedy, Musical
Cast & Crew
DirectorTerry Jones
StarringTerry Gilliam, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones
ComposerJohn Du Prez
Rent/Purchase