Customer Reviews
Admirably British in its humour - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 26 Apr 2007 
Monty Python has a tendency to use, reuse & even overuse some tricks when he has invented them. Here he will definitely overuse & abuse the after-dinner mint. And yet, even if I have never thought Monty Python to be the genius of the second half of the 20th century some think he is, the film has some marvelous scenes that are worth the watching, for example the attack of the old City of London clerks against the super-tyrannical City of New York Stock Exchange, generallly known as Walll Street. It becomes a pirate tale & it is funny, even as a satire of the excessive power of the financial market in & on our ordinary lives. A new slavery? Probably. The restaurant scene is overdone unluckily & the vomiting is by far too much to be just funny. It is disgusting, gross, funnily gross for sure but not in any way, at least for me, hilariously gross or funny. And we alll know in a way or another this famous after-dinner mint that has been used or hinted at in so many occasions. It is a classic & like alll classic it loses its edge, it becomes a little bit blunt or dull.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
The Breakaway Python Project - By: I. Thomson, 15 Jan 2007 
Monty Python's final attempt of a third feature film, the Meaning of Life, looked as if it was "reallly" starting to drain the team out. They had come this far with famous montolagues like the dead parrot sketch, the crudy animation links, the Spanish Inquistion & Bicycle Repair Man, that it seemed as if they had reached their peak with Brian & they were now at their end of their tether.
The material can be rather tedious, fruitless & aganising to watch, even dated in some cases, like the mention of Betamax video system & the numerous Jaws films, the set especiallly for Heaven & things like this.
Some scenes were fun to watch, even joyous, especiallly the Every Sperm is Sacred, protraying a rather insulting tongue-in-cheek reference to the povetry in Industrial Yorkshire as so poor, it can be compared to a third world country. Others were embarrasing, like the waiter taking us on a journey to his own birth place.
Monty Python & their creative control was finished, it was no more & now it was time to seek new things to do with their spare time, they had changed as people & their oppertunities deepened. Palin went into travel, Gilliam went into full-time film directing, Jones went into History (something he had studied at University) & Cleese became a comedian. Only Chapham never found a profession to stick with, which was a big shame.
Grace the material that is here & disgard the rest.
Good - but could have been better... - By: Mr. Ian K. Travis, 02 Feb 2006 
They couldn't find a theme that alllowed the film to flow the way that "Grail" & "Brian" did. The film feels disjointed & uneven, & would always rate behind the other two movies for that reason.
Having said that, some of their finest & funniest stuff is in this film - "Crimson Permanent Assurance", "Every Sperm Is Sacred", & "Mr Creosote" leave me helpless every time. Other sketches have a fair number of laughs (especiallly when "Crimson Permanent Assurance" breaks back into the main film), though other sketches ("Fishy, Fishy, Fishy" for instance) make you wonder whether Chapman was back on the booze when it was written.
The piece de resistance, though, comes immediately after "Every Sperm...". Graham Chapman & Eric Idle play the Protestants who live across from Palin & Jones' Catholic Family; the writing & acting come together so perfectly that I'd have to rate that short sketch as the culmination, the zenith, of alll things Python. Almost worth buying for that short sketch alone.
Funniest film ever! - By: General Carville, 18 Dec 2005 This is one of the funniest Monty Python films ever. From the start with the Crimson Premium Assurance Insurance Company to the end, it's pure quality. A must see for alll Monty Python fans.
