Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The

San Francisco Chronicle Judy Stone

Aided by the luscious cinematography of Giuseppe Rotunno (one of Fellini's favorites) and the illustrious production design of Dante Ferretti, Gilliam has clearly won this round to preserve magic and wonder on the screen. [8 Mar 1989, p.E1]

Washington Post Hal Hinson

Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a wondrous feat of imagination. In terms of sheer inventiveness, it makes the other movies around these days look paltry and underfed. The worlds Gilliam has created here are like the ones he created in his animations for Monty Python -- they have a majestic peculiarity. And you're constantly amazed by the freshness and eccentricity of what is pushed in front of your eyes.

Washington Post Desson Howe

Terry Gilliam is the wit behind this lavish display of sieges, sea-creature tussles and trips to the moon. Adapting the handed-down stories of Baron Von Munchausen, an 18th-century spinner of tall tales, this modern maker of similar flights of fancy has created another brilliantly inventive epic of fantasy and satire.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Terry Gilliam's third fantasy feature (1989) may not achieve all it reaches for, but it goes beyond Time Bandits and Brazil in its play with space and time, and as a children's picture offers a fresh and exciting alternative to the Disney stranglehold on the market.

The New York Times Vincent Canby

With their remarkable contributions, ''Baron Munchausen'' is full of moments that dazzle, just for the fun of seeing the impossible come to life on the screen. What the Folies-Bergere once was for the foot-weary tourist, ''Baron Munchausen'' is for the television-exhausted child. Nothing much happens, but you can't easily tear your eyes away from it.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I was confused sometimes during Baron Munchausen and bored sometimes, but this is a vast and commodious work, and even allowing for the unsuccessful passages there is a lot here to treasure.

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

The narrative is highly episodic and only intermittently engaging, but Gilliam's wildly inventive mise en scene, ably assisted by production designer Dante Ferretti, is extraordinary.

Boston Globe Joan Anderman

Gilliam has a vision and a viewpoint, and he puts it on screen with an extravagance, a humanistic generosity and a visual imagination that make it a standout in 1989's virtual cinematic vacuum. [10 Mar 1989, p.32]

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

Munchausen is indeed a beautiful, burgeoning, madly voluptuous movie from minute to minute and image to image; it's in the aggregate that the film fails to find the weight and the rhythm it needs to truly enthrall. [10 Mar 1989, p.A]

Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson

Gilliam never aims down, his films zing in somewhere at the Mensa level of reference, but he seems confident that we will catch the wit of his visual quotations and so we do. Like a film making Catherine wheel, he throws off an immoderate art history display; he plunders past film styles with a free hand to make a point. [5 Mar 1989, p.23]

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

I felt much the same way as I sat goggle-eyed through this endless extravaganza of visual abracadabra. It seemed entirely possible that I might die of the fidgets or old age while waiting for Baron Munchausen to kill the Turks. And yet I found myself wanting to see the end of the movie before I expired. [9 Mar 1989, p.1]

USA Today Mike Clark

Excesses or not, I'm rabid to see this again. [10 Mar 1989, p.1D]

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

A fitting final installment in Terry Gilliam's trilogy begun with Time Bandits and continued with Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen shares many of those films strengths and weaknesses, but doesn't possess the visionary qualities of the latter.

Empire Ian Nathan

Weird to the Gilliamth degree, Munchausen just might making being an 'uneven' movie a compliment.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

Despite an inspired central section involving Robin Williams as the King of the Moon and Valentina Cortese as his Queen, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a near-disaster of Ishtarish proportions. [11 Mar 1989, p.C3]