'Time Bandits' Doesn’t Make You Want to Go Back in Time

I’ll be the first to tell you that there is an utter dearth of programming for elementary school children. There simply isn’t much to watch after you are done with Disney Junior but are not quite ready for Stranger Things. To its credit, AppleTV+ endeavors to fill that void with shows like Me, WondLa, and its newest series Time Bandits. 

Based on the 1981 movie of the same name that starred Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, John Cleese, and Katherine Helmond, the ten-episode series follows 11-year-old Kevin (Kal-El Tuck), who loves history. His idea of a good time is visiting Woodhenge, the precursor to Stonehenge’s, for his birthday. He’s ignored by his well-meaning parents, who don’t quite understand him, and his sister, Saffron (Kiera Thompson), who is not amused by her nerdy brother. Kevin is picked last for the soccer team (even after the kid on crutches), eats lunch alone, and plays board games against himself. 

That all changes when he goes through his closet door and finds himself face-to-face with some very unhappy Vikings.  Soon a not-so-merry band of time travelling thieves are in his room looking at a map. Suddenly, Kevin finds himself jumping through time and coming face to face with things he only read about in the history books and Wikipedia. Stonehenge! A Trojan horse! The ancient Mayans!

This all sounds terribly exciting, doesn’t it? Alas, the show doesn’t live up to its innovative premise. Series creators and writers Jemaine Clement, Iain Morris, and Taika Waititi have all the right ingredients, but Time Bandits never entirely comes together. As time-traveling bandit Penelope, Lisa Kudrow is perhaps the most well-known member of the cast. (When Penelope says things like, “I’m not the leader, but I am the one in charge,” it’s hard not to feel like Phoebe Buffay herself has time traveled all the way from the Central Perk circa 1995.) Maybe that won’t distract younger viewers who didn’t grow up quoting Friends, but older viewers may feel confused and wait for Penelope to launch into a version of “Smelly Cat.” 

Tuck is a delight as the central character on which the show all hinges. Amid all the chaos, he resonates as a young boy who wants something to belong to. “For a brief moment in my life, I felt like I was part of a team,” he tells Penelope.

The show has a goofy sense of humor reminiscent of two much more adult series: The canceled Our Flag Means Death, which Waititi wrote and starred in, and What We Do in the Shadows, which Clement created and Waititi directed. The humor here is more family-friendly, which takes away some of its bite while still telling jokes that may go over younger viewers’ heads. “I just hope this one stays up,” a construction worker tells Kevin as he’s building Stonehenge before pointing out the Stonehenge gift shop. When Kevin assures him it will, he replies, “That’s what they said about all the other henges.” Kevin’s parents' obsession with scrolling their phones while watching TV and mindlessly telling Kevin to “keep it down” and to “stop talking to yourself and go to bed” offers some of the show’s most humorous moments. “Don’t laugh. It’s evil; therefore, it’s serious,” one of the show’s big bads declares. It often feels like watching a tween version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

Waititi and Clement clearly have a blast as the series’ mysterious Supreme Being and the aptly named Wrongness, respectively. Charlene Yi is a hoot as Judy, a time bandit who sees an opportunity to take charge of the group. “There’s a possible opening for a leadership position, and you’re a successful female leader. I would love any tips at all on how to crack the glass ceiling,” she tells a Mayan ruler. (Most unfortunately and upsettingly, Yi departed the series before completing production amid allegations they were assaulted on the set.)

The other major problem is that the show’s special effects have a cheesy 80s vibe. It’s unclear if this retro approach to the special effects was on purpose and an homage to the source material or if it’s a consequence of budget constraints. But things like a large rock coming to life or the Supreme Being’s headquarters look distractingly low-budget. 

Time Bandits is, at times, so silly that it's hard to feel like Kevin is in any real danger, which again might not appeal to the target demographic the show is aiming for. But by the end of the two-episode premiere, the stakes of the show are raised considerably, and Kevin’s reason for time-hopping has a dramatic thrust. But, still, maybe it wasn’t time to do the time warp again. 

The first two episodes of Time Bandits premiere Wednesday, July 24 on AppleTV+. Two episodes will premiere every Wednesday thereafter until the season finale on August 21, 2024.