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Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones round out the troop and play the fewest characters, but I assume that's because they also co-directed the film. Gilliam, who went on to become a supremely talented filmmaker on his own, has one memorable character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as the Bridgkeeper near the end. Jones' major contribution on screen is as Sir Bedevere, one of the Knights of the Round Table, but I'm having a hard time remembering anything that Bedevere did in the film. I guess you could say that Jones didn't impress me.

Besides co-directing, co-writing, and appearing on screen, Gilliam had one more major contribution to Monty Python and the Holy Grail: he was the lead animator on the film. There are countless examples of his work onscreen, but the two that stand out most to me were God talking to Arthur and then the monster who chases Arthur and his knights out of the cave. While the animation isn't anything particularly striking, it has a certain flair and charm. Gilliam's artwork has become synonymous with the Python universe, and I believe it's featured in most of their work.

Other than the main plot line, following Arthur and his quest for the holy grail, the film falls a little flat. There are simply too many cut scenes that just didn't work for me. Each time the film would cutaway to one of these scenes, the momentum was completely lost. Even worse, though, I just didn't find most of these additional scenes funny - a serious flaw in an otherwise well done film.

One example of something that just didn't work for me is the "subplot" with the police officers investigating the murder of one of the actors onscreen. This was slightly amusing at first - the meta nature of a character being killed onscreen and turning out to be a case where the actor playing the character was actually murdered during the production, thus drawing a police investigation - but it grew increasingly tiring as it drug on. The police are shown several times, first discovering the body, then consoling the victim's family, and then pursuing Arthur throughout the film, and each time they popped up it bothered me a bit more.

The subplot culminates in a very disappointing ending, when the police effectively shut down filming, and the movie simply ends. I understand that this was done to avoid having to shoot an expensive and lengthy battle sequence, which I can understand, but I would have liked the group to come up with a different solution.

Because of these problems, Monty Python and the Holy Grail feels bloated and overlong, despite its very short 89 minute running time. I think this could have made a tremendous, hilarious film at 60 minutes, but as it stands, it's nothing more than a decent comedy. I'm sure a lot of fans will consider this a blasphemous statement, but it's one I stand by.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is genuinely funny film, but I can't quite understand what makes it a classic in the eyes of so many fans and critics alike.

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