Monty Python's The Meaning of Life [M]

Have you ever wondered what’s it all about? Why are we here? What purpose lands us where we are? In short, what is the meaning of life? Many people have you know, philosophers, scientists, butchers, bakers, and pornography makers. So too have the blokes from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. So sit back and enjoy the many chapters that mark the journey of the human life: The Miracle of Birth, Growth and Learning, Fighting Each Other, Middle Age, Live Organ Transplants, The Autumn Years, The Meaning of Life, and Death. Who knows, you might just find the answer you’re looking for. 

When my parents first exposed me to Monty Python, I was too young to understand its brilliance. From memory, they started me on Life of Brian when I was around six or seven. The answer’s in the question really. Years later when I was eleven or twelve they tried again, with greater success, with Holy Grail and from there my admiration and appreciation of these blokes was founded. It probably isn’t fair though for me to say that in comparison to those two movies, The Meaning of Life just doesn’t hit the mark. Now I haven’t seen the original show so there easily could be that factor that contributes to my disillusionment with this movie and I’m more than happy to admit and accept that I may be on the wrong side of the bridge with some of the claims that I’m to make in this review. But for me, this movie just didn’t hold any joy. I found the humour here was crude, some of it rather tasteless, and although the legendary wit and timing of Monty Python is there in spades, there is just something about this film that doesn’t do it for me. My apologies to all Python enthusiasts who are probably the real deal out there, but these are just my thoughts. 

Have you ever wondered what’s it all about? Why are we here? What purpose lands us where we are? In short, what is the meaning of life? Many people have you know, philosophers, scientists, butchers, bakers, and pornography makers. So too have the blokes from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. So sit back and enjoy the many chapters that mark the journey of the human life: The Miracle of Birth, Growth and Learning, Fighting Each Other, Middle Age, Live Organ Transplants, The Autumn Years, The Meaning of Life, and Death. Who knows, you might just find the answer you’re looking for. 

An hour and a half long collage of skits that somehow deal with the chapter subject earlier depicted, The Meaning of Life is engaging enough but for some reason doesn’t strike me as being as clever as Python’s other films. I do realise this is an unfair and unjustified claim to make as the structure and general makeup of Meaning of Life is completely different to those of Holy Grail and Life of Brian, but it’s my admiration of those movies that puts Monty Python in so high regard in my mind and therefore, shapes my response to this film. If this was the first Monty Python film I’d ever seen, I wouldn’t be very keen to rush right out and rent some others, I probably wouldn’t bother persevering at all to be honest. 

Having gotten the nastiness out of the way, I do have to give credit where it’s deserved. This isn’t necessarily a bad movie. It got me smiling and indeed laughing more than once. Some of Python’s most iconic and memorable skits can be found here including the obese vomiting man, Death’s being invited in to dinner, and of course the ‘Every Sperm is Sacred’ song. Surrounding those central favourites lays a lot of sex and nudie humour, crudeness, and gore humour as well, which can be funny and sometimes here it proves to be so but often I just find that it’s a quick laugh and oftentimes not all that necessary. 

Starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life is an engaging and slightly entertaining movie, but not the finest in the Monty Python repertoire. Filled with gore, sex, nudity, spontaneity, and a good lot of wit, it’s not without charm. Its charm just didn’t work for me.