Apple TV+ has released the first trailer for Taika Waititi’s fantasy adventure series Time Bandits, which is a reimaging of Terry Gilliam’s classic 1981 film.
I love the original Time Bandits movie! It’s one of my favorites when I was a kid and it’s one of those films that I continue to revisit frequently.
I was curious to see what Waititi would do with his reimagining, now after watching the trailer, I’m unimpressed. It doesn’t really have the same feel or tone as the original movie.
This series was clearly not made for fans of the original film. This is for a new and younger generation of audiences who have probably never even seen the original Time Bandits.
The series stars Lisa Kudrow, Tadhg Murphy, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, Kal-El Tuck, Kiera Thompson, and Rune Temte.
The show has been described as a comedic journey through time and space with a ragtag group of thieves led by Kudrow’s character Penelope, and their newest recruit: an eleven-year-old history nerd named Kevin. A lot of the comedy in this trailer falls flat for me.
Waititi previously talked about his experience watching the original film, saying: “It was just nothing I’d really ever seen before. I remember being freaked out by a lot of it. A lot of the kids’ films back then were not as inventive and imaginative.”
When talking about casting Kudrow in the series, the filmmaker said: “I just love Lisa Kudrow and thought it’d be awesome to see her leading a band of idiots through time.”
Taika developed the series along with Jemaine Clement, who said: “Most of the things that Taika and I have done have been very cheap. He’s done lots of big-budget things, but I haven’t been on this side of the big budget.
“So it was great to have a bigger box of paint to work with. But I always enjoy working with Taika. We’ve got a real shorthand with each other. I forget when I work with other writers or directors, there’s a bit more explanation that has to take place.”
He added: “There’s some you’d expect and some you wouldn’t perhaps. We go from prehistoric dinosaur times to the ‘90s. There are some medieval places like medieval England and medieval Africa. And we go the Ice Age. That’s a fun one.”
The series will consist of ten episodes, and it will be released on July 24th on Apple TV+. Watch the trailer and tell us what you think!
