Taika Waititis Time Bandits is extremely offensive and unfunny

A 1981 fantasy classic from Terry Gilliams Time Bandits The film owes its Monty Python-esque charm, humor, and magical wit to its title characters: a gang of time-traveling, small-time thieves who bicker, scheme, bond, and play bad jokes on their odyssey through the ages. Free of clichéd condescension or mockery, and imbued with the distinctive personalities of its protagonists, it was and remains one of the most important modern silver-screen platforms for little people.

So, remaking it without them is creative nonsense to the point of being downright offensive, because it misses the point of the original (and its success) and deprives smaller actors of some of the most remarkable roles they've ever had. It's like, say, remaking The Wizard of Oz Or Charlie and the chocolate factory with, respectively, 6-foot-tall munchkins and Oompa Loompas. Except in this case, it's more reprehensible, given that unlike these supporting roles, the Time Bandits – funny, mischievous, intelligent and courageous – are the heroes of their story.

But leave it to Taika Waititi, the eternally harmful one. Jojo Rabbitdo the one thing that shouldn't be done.

Time Banditsa 10-episode Apple TV+ series (July 24) created by Waititi and his What we do in the shadows Waititi’s partner Jemaine Clement reimagines his small-time heist characters with mid-sized stars led by Lisa Kudrow, and the effect is so immediately bad that the show never recovers from this initial misstep. Anyone who has ever felt even a shred of affection for Gilliams’ saga is likely to instantly balk at such a fundamentally flawed idea, which drains the proceedings of their inherent comedic energy. Worse, though, even with this grave misstep aside, the Waititi-Clements affair sprawls and turns in on itself to have no appreciable ending, wasting a Kal-El Tuck performance that deserves a superior project to this misguided work in the process.

With the same basic principle as its predecessor, Time Bandits The story of Kevin (Tuck), a contemporary 11-year-old boy living in the English town of Bingley with a mother (Felicity Ward) and father (James Dryden) who don't understand his nerdy love of history. Kevin's intellectual curiosity and vehement desire to tell facts about anything and everything make him an outcast in a smartphone-obsessed age. When one night, Viking and Saxon warriors visit him through his bedroom closet, his parents dismiss the visit as another of his fantasies stuck in the past. The next night, he receives more unexpected guests: a ragtag group of thieves pursued by a giant, quasi-Zardoz head known as the Supreme Being who, upon appearing, forces everyone, including Kevin, to hastily flee through a portal that drops them onto an 1810 Chinese pirate ship.

Although they repeatedly claim to be a leaderless collective, the Time Bandits are led by Penelope (Kudrow), and they also include navigator Widgit (Roger Jean Nsengiyumva), strongman Bittelig (Rune Temte), empath Judy (Charlyne Yi), and actor Alto (Tadhg Murphy). Time Bandits reveals that these bumbling scoundrels were working as shrubbery designers for the architect of creation, the Supreme Being (played, in human form, by Waititi, of course), but they stole his most powerful possession: a map that allows people to travel anywhere in time. They use this map to steal valuable artifacts while avoiding capture by their former boss as well as Pure Evil (Clement), a demonic villain who wants it for nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, however, they are incompetent, and that means trouble for Kevin, since they have no idea how to get him home.

Kevin and his band of merry burglars are soon jumping through the ages, stopping off at Troy, Stonehenge, and ancient Egypt to engage in pranks with Cassandra (Zo Ventoura), the Earl of Sandwich, and other characters who, unlike Gilliam’s film, aren’t played by silver-screen luminaries like Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, and John Cleese. There’s not a single funny concept or witty line to be found in these 10 installments. Instead, Waititi and Clement fill the material with jokes that vainly attempt to distinguish the Bandits from one another. The problem is that despite their different professions and motivations (for example, Penelope occasionally references an ex-fiancé, and they all mention a recently deceased comrade), these Bandits are all equally stupid and incompetent, meaning that every joke sounds and ends exactly the same.

Gilliams Time Bandits The show has always played on the contrast between its small-time crooks and their teenage protégé, but Waititi and Clements’ version replaces that with a pedestrian hustle from one famous location to another. It’s a fundamental misstep, and one made worse by the fact that the show never bothers to present its crooks as anything other than generic buffoons without a single interesting (let alone hysterical) trait. Kudrow suffers the most in this regard, if only because she’s front and center. Tuck is the only actor who comes through, displaying a likable know-it-all attitude that’s both sarcastic and sweet; in a better project, he could really shine.

Alas, this is not the company. Time Bandits Kevin rushes around looking for a plot that might elicit a faint smile, only to end up with situations and skirmishes that test his patience to the limit. At one point, Kevin and his gang find themselves torn between trying to escape the Supreme Being as well as a demon hunter named Fianna (Rachel House), and attempting to save Kevin's parents—a mission that involves partnering with Kevin's sister, Saffron (Kiera Thompson), who also happens to be traveling through time. Unsurprisingly, more mayhem doesn't equal more laughs, and the closer the series gets to its drawn-out conclusion, the more boring it becomes.

Of all Time Bandits There are plenty of missteps, perhaps the most egregious of which is casting a group of small people in forgettable supporting roles, indicating that Waititi knows these men and women can be charismatic presences, yet is willfully sidelining them in favor of cheesy, middling alternatives. It may not be as eye-catching as the writer/director’s earlier decision to make Hitler cute and cuddly in a remix of the tragic story of Anne Frank, but to demote such performers to supporting players in an adaptation of the rare film to treat them properly is a blunder of historic proportions.