Over 25 years in the making, Terry Gilliam’s loose and troubled adaptation of Cervantes’ masterwork has become a Hollywood myth and synonymous with “cursed project”. Now finally emerging from development hell, this extravagant fantasy-comedy features familiar directorial flourishes, including the blurring of reality and fiction, and a bevy of inventive visuals. It’s an epic adventure that doubles as a thinly-veiled allegory about the concessions filmmakers have to make in corporate Hollywood. But despite a few laughs due to Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver’s strong performances and some cheekily self-aware gags, it thoroughly disappoints. You can applaud its ambition, but there’s no getting around the fact that what may once have been a brave undertaking at some point devolved into a bloated, stale vanity project.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote | Directed by Terry Gilliam (UK, Spain, France, Portugal, Belgium 2018) with Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce. Starts September 27.
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