Jabberwocky

 Sometime between Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian, Terry Gilliam decided he wanted to make his own movie, distanced from the troupe that he had helped make famous. Well, not too distanced - Michael Palin plays the main character, and Neil Iness and Terry Jones make an appearace... so, between them that's half of the Pythons (along with a load of '70s British comedians).

 But for good or ill, it's clear that this is Gilliam's show.
 It's clear in the production design, the framing of the shots, and the bleak, misanthropic worldview. As far as being, you know, good... well, that'd need to wait until the next movie.

 Palin plays Dennis Cooper, an apprentice cooper that is more interested in the business-side of coopering than on the actual barrel making. His father and employer loathes him for it, and disowns him on his deathbed.

 With no other means of sustenance, Dennis goes off to the big city to make his fortune so he can come back and ask for the hand of his grotesque childhood sweetheart. But the guilds have all the business sown up in town, to the point that a legendary cooper Dennis meets soon after sneaking into the city has resorted to cutting his own feet to make more money begging.
 No matter. Soon Dennis befriends a knight's page, who takes him under his wing, and they embark on a series of mildly funny adventures that will end up with Dennis going against the Jabberwock, a beast that's ravaging the land.

 Cooper is your quintessential Palin character, a good-natured goof with unending reserves of innocence and optimism who is then run through a wringer for comic effect. His bumbling attempts to help always backfire, and his modest aims in life (get a little business and return to his hometown sweetheart that clearly can't stand him) fail upwards tragically (he ends up getting the traditional happily ever after, except that it's at the expense of everything he actually wanted.)

 The filmmaking is great, if a bit unpolished - there's lots of imaginative shots and great use of darkness, and Gilliam's trademark lived-in clutter. The sets are a wonder (they were lucky enough to be able to reuse the run-down Oliver sets at Shepperton, just before they were demolished.) While their lines aren't always that great, the actors seem to be having a blast. Palin is likeable and annoying as ever - this is probably peak Palin as a role- and there's always something interesting going on somewhere in the frame.

 Unfortunately I just didn't find it very funny. Unlike Brazil or other later Gilliam films, the humor isn't subtle (or subtle-ish) or ironic or organic; Here it's wall to wall jokes and humorous situations. Except... that they're mostly pretty bland. Trying to distance itself away from the surrealistic humor of Monty Python, the script instead relies on standard farce, gross-out humour, very broad jokes and mugging hysterically to the cameras. Very of its time.
 The best jokes in the movie, like the way they end up deciding who wins a tournament, are very... well, Pythonesque. And the whole exaggeratedly dirty medieval look and casual violence, which might have carried some of the humor, was already familiar from Holy Grail.

 Even if there aren't a lot of laughs, it's amusing enough, in a very basic way. It's always interesting to look at as well, despite the low budget and rough edges, and the ideas it plays with are fun. I'd watched this before ages ago when I first became obsessed with Monty Python and didn't care for it at all. This time around, trying to let it be its own thing I liked it a bit better. I'd take Holy Grail or Time Bandits over this in a heartbeat, but I've watched way worse movies for the sake of completism.