gridoon2024 Review of The Meaning of Life

The Meaning of Life (1983)

Marching up and down the square not good enough for you, eh?

[7/10 · 24 January 2022]

Monty Python's last big-screen hurrah is uneven: at times it is hilarious to the point of tears (even in throwaway lines, like a kid's "Speak Up!"), at other times it stretches out a great idea too long (the opening mini-feature), and it also has its share of duds (has anyone ever liked the conversation-dungeon sequence?). The film's best part, and indeed one of the best things the Pythons ever did, is without much contention the "Every Sperm is Sacred" number, which is an exhilarating marvel of escalation and co-ordination and unironically rivals any "serious" Hollywood musical. As for the rest, the transitions between the segments are often superior to the segments themselves - it is there that the Pythons succeed at capturing pure surrealism on the screen more than most pretenders. *** out of 4.