The classic moments still brought some intermittent laughs, but some left me scratching my head.
- "I'm not dead yet."
- The fight with the Black Knight
- The monks hitting themselves in the head
- Castle Anthrax filled with women
- The French heckling the English
- The minstrels' "Brave Sir Robin"
- The Knights that go Ni
- The holy hand grenade
- That ending
So it's kind of my understanding that Monty Python and the Flying Circus is the SNL of British sketch comedy and they decided to make some movies in the same vein that Lorne Michaels produced the movies Wayne's World, Coneheads, Superstar, Night at the Roxbury, Ladies Man, etc right? Am I on the right path?
And just like some of the SNL movies had huge cult followings at the time and people still quote and love them today, people feel the same way about the Monty Python movies I would assume. But just as I find re-watching some of those SNL movies now don't quite pack the same punch comedically as they once did, I wonder if Holy Grail is the same way or maybe it's just me as I'm not a huge fan of British comedy. I remember my dad watching "Are you being served?" and "Fawlty Towers" and not really getting it either. I thought maybe I was too young, and maybe I was and need to revisit these shows, but I do like some of the stop motion / claymation British comedy movies, I don't know, I digress.
Anyway, if you like British comedy and have NOT see Holy Grail, you'll probably love it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. It has a strong start, but then I was starting to fall asleep towards the end. Even the characters in the movie say, "Get on with it" and I think Arthur's favorite line was "Shut up". If the writers had shut up and got on with it a little more in the script department, maybe I would have been more entertained.
Epilogue
In 2011, an ABC prime-time special, Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, counted down the best films chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and People. Holy Grail was selected as the second best comedy after Airplane!.
I think the take away is that the special was called “The Greatest Movies of Our Time.”
