Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Director: Terry Jones
Year Released: 1983
Rating: 3.0
Raucous, irreverent Python stuff, purporting to be about the 'meaning of life' itself but only using that as a start-off point for various skits on how it's wrong to spill your seed, the idiocy of war and overindulgence. Most of it works, actually, and the skits are turned off just at the point they should - absurdism can get mundane quickly once the initial zing of the idea is gone and there's little to keep the piece going (see the scene with the man's leg being bitten off). The first half-hour contains non-stop hysteria - after that it goes slightly downhill, though it's all still very amusing. Michael Palin, who would turn to 'serious' writing after the group disbanded, nails every line perfectly; Eric Idle's ditties, especially "The Penis Song," are wonderfully acerbic. It doesn't reach the peak of comedy that Holy Grail does, though it tries.
