"Like his precious output, the film makes for an eye-opening experience exclusively for its novelty in play, while the narrative shambles along higgledy-piggledy, the hybrid elision eliminates any sense of agency in the plot, and there is no enough novelty can save THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN from sagging into an exhausting succession of show pieces, all mechanical but no feelings. The issue with Zeman's visual "objet d'art" is that it is a reversal gestaltism - the whole is perceived less than the sum of its intelligently designed parts. Zeman is a superlatively diligent and inventive craftsman, a poetic visionary, but his films reckon without characterization, all the actors are merely pawns functioning on auto pilot, humor also runs low in his moonshot. A visit to Zeman museum (located in Prague, near Charles Bridge) may prove worthier than sitting through his feature-length endeavors."
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