TIME BANDITS: Episode 1.1: “Kevin Haddock” and 1.2: “Mayan”

Name: TIME BANDITS: Episode 1.1: “Kevin Haddock” and 1.2: “Mayan”
Item: TIME BANDITS: Episode 1.1: “Kevin Haddock” and 1.2: “Mayan”
Author: Review

"Fun and Clever, but Flawed"

Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

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What You Need To Know:

TIME BANDITS is an Apple TV+ series inspired by a beloved 1981 movie. It follows an 11-year-old English boy named Kevin. Kevin travels back in time with a band of thieves who crash into Kevin’s bedroom. The six thieves have stolen a map of time portals from the Supreme Being. They’re using the map to steal stuff, but they’re pursued by the Supreme Being and by the Devil, who goes by the name Pure Evil. In Episode 2, Kevin discovers he must travel back in time to save the lives of his parents.

The first two episodes of TIME BANDITS set the stage for a funny, exciting fantasy adventure series. Its references to history are rather fun, and the boy hero displays some admirable qualities. However, Episode 2 has a quirky depiction of the Supreme Being that makes Him seem less than all-powerful and all-knowing. Episode 2 has an example of politically correct revisionist history. Finally, the first two episodes of TIME BANDITS have some brief foul language and scary violence. MOVIEGUIDE® therefore finds the first two episodes of TIME BANDITS excessive.

Content:

(PaPa, FRFR, BB, C, PCPC, RHRH, Co, L, VV, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Mixed pagan worldview with some supernatural content about Good versus Evil where the quirky “Supreme Being” in the story seems to be less than all-powerful and all-knowing, but the boy hero in the story has a moral conscience and courageously speaks out several times against the stealing and thievery of his adult companions and eventually learns he must travel back in time to save the lives of his parents, plus there’s some politically correct revisionist history that absolves the Mayan civilization of its evil human sacrifice and cannibalism and slanders the Spanish conquistadores in a typical mocking Marxist attack on Western Civilization;

Foul Language:

Four light profanities in the first two episodes, and there are a few obscenities like a “d” or “h” word and some euphemisms like “flipping heck” and “flipping flip,” and brief British slang such as “bloody”;

Violence:

Some strong and light, sometimes scary, violence such as man knocks down a series of walls, soldiers chase man and boy through a time portal, boy hurtles down a wooden floor when he falls through a time portal, boy and other people jump through a time portal in an ocean whirlpool and lands hard on the ground, a man is crushed by a falling stone at the building of Stonehenge, a soldier falls off a wall, and we see his leg broken but not bloody or gory way, arrows are shot, Kevin gets hit in his arm by an arrow, a man gets hit with a cannon ball, Kevin notes how Mayans played soccer with the heads of their enemies, slapstick comedy throughout, and various references to violence in history, such as a verbal reference to the Greeks slaughtering the Trojans after they exit the Trojan Horse;

Sex:

No sex, but one character comments about a colored light on a wall being “sexy”;

Nudity:

Brief upper male nudity;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Strong miscellaneous immorality such as boy hero has a moral compass, but the morality of the Time Bandits with whom he’s traveling is left ambiguous, the Time Bandits steal things, and they’ve stolen a map to the universe from the Supreme Being to accomplish this, and the boy hero’s parents ignore Kevin and his sister because they’re too busy using their smartphones and watching TV, and they don’t care one whit about Kevin’s interest in history.

More Detail:

TIME BANDITS is a new comical fantasy series on Apple TV+ based on the beloved 1981 movie. This version of the story is led by the direction of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi and stars Kal-El Tuck as the main character, a precocious, adorable 11-year-old English history buff named Kevin.

Kevin loves history and is thrust into a fantasy world where he must form an alliance with a band of thieves when they crash into his bedroom. They reveal that they’re being pursued by the Supreme Being, their previous employer whom they believed treated them unfairly. The Supreme Being is close on their tail. Kevin and the Time Bandits escape by traveling to 1810 on the boat of an infamous Chinese pirate.

Meanwhile, a satanic character called Wrongness plots how to steal the time map from the Time Bandits so he can create his own warped universe. For example, he tells his demonic minions that he might like, for example, make all directions go up.

In Episode 2, Kevin and the Time Bandits travel to ancient Mexico, where they take part in a Mayan feast. However, Wrongness, also known as Pure Evil, sends out a huntress named Fianna on an individual quest. Eventually, Kevin discovers he must travel back in time to save the lives of his parents.

Despite adapting a movie from 1981, TIME BANDITS episodic format manages to stick fairly close to the general story and plot of its predecessor. However, that’s where its similarities end. For example, originally the Time Bandits were a group of male dwarves. In the series, they are now a small group of average-sized people with mostly completely different names from the original. They are led by a woman named Penelope, played by Lisa Kudrow of FRIENDS. Penelope clearly thinks of herself as the leader and loves to take charge, but she always displays false humility, claiming that they’re all “equal.”

The three creators behind the program, who collaborated on the TV series WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, adopt the same kind of wacky humor of the original TIME BANDITS. The comedy is fun and fits the wacky nature of the story.

On top of that, the program stresses the importance of knowing history. Kevin uses his knowledge of history to help his quirky new friends to get out of a scrape in the first episode. However, in the second episode, he makes a mistake about the Mayan village they end up visiting. He thinks the Mayan queen is going to sacrifice them to her gods, because of what he read in a book. In this case, Kevin turns out to be wrong. The Mayan Queen had no intention of sacrificing them. In the scene where this occurs, the Queen says that her people don’t make human sacrifices to the gods. Also, the scene slanderously accuses the Europeans invaders, who later conquered the last of the Mayan civilizations in the 16th Century, of making up the story about Mayan human sacrifice. However, although human sacrifice was not as common or frequent among the Mayans of Southern Mexico and Central America as the Aztecs of Central Mexico, there are local records and carvings of regular human sacrifices by the Mayans. So, this scene in Episode 2 of TIME BANDITS is politically correct revisionist history. As such, it promotes the radical liberal/leftist lies of “Critical Race Theory” and “Cultural Marxism.”

That said, in both episodes, Kevin is the voice of reason and goodness. For example, on more than one occasion, he takes a strong heroic stance against the thievery and attempted stealing of his new companions. Thus, he exemplifies an ability to do what’s right.

However, this positive elements are marred by the second episode’s odd portrayal of the “Supreme Being” or God. In the first episode, the Supreme God makes a strong but brief appearance as the Supreme Deity. However, in Episode 2, the program shows the Supreme Being in Heaven, where he’s played by Director Taika Waititi, the clever, talented filmmaker who made a big splash directing such movies like THOR: RAGNAROK and JOJO RABBIT. Here, TIME BANDITS depicts God as quirky and less than all-powerful and all-knowing. Though this fits the program’s tongue-in-cheek approach to irreverent comedy, it’s too sacrilegious.

Another problem with TIME BANDITS is the program’s depiction of Kevin’s parents. Kevin’s parents don’t care one whit about his passion for history. They find all that boring. They’re also too preoccupied with using their smartphones and watching TV. Hopefully, if Kevin can save their lives, they will become better parents in the remaining eight episodes.

The first two episodes of TIME BANDITS also have a few relatively light obscenities and about four light profanities. However, Episode Two also has a strong profanity misusing the name of Jesus. Finally, the first two episodes contain some violence and scary moments. The demon huntress that the devil character sends to steal the map from the bandits is very scary.

Overall, therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® finds the first two episodes of TIME BANDITS excessive. The other eight episodes may turn this around, of course, but the second episode was just too disappointing.