The story involves the siege of a town during "The Age of Reason" in the 19th century. A play about the Baron is taking place in the ruins until the real Baron shows up to set the record straiight about what really happened in his adventures. The town is being shelled by the Turks because the Baron made off with all the Sultan's treasure after winning a bet and the Sultan wants it back. It's up to the Baron with the help of Sally and his super ability friends to set things right, which involves gathering up his friends from fantastic lands and the adventures they encounter along the way.

That's the scenario of the film in a nutshell. Gilliam's influence is tremendous and if you like Gilliam, you'll like Baron Munchhausen. The film is a bit long in some areas and could have been trimmed for a faster moving story but then it fits with the Baron character, who is a bit long winded in his tales.

The blu-ray transfer is sharp and very colorful, once you get past the opening battle sequence, which is dark and moody as most wars are. Once the adventures begin, the picture is pure eye candy in spots. The Sultan's palace, the Moon sequence, and Vulcan all are a set designer's dream (or nightmare). A real highlight is Uma Thurman's entrance as Venus in a half shell, which tries to duplicate the famous painting . The film does get a bit grainy in spots but this can be attributed to the technolgy of the time.

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound is also done very well by Sony. When Berthold (Eric Idle) starts his run, the sound effects really kick in through the surround speakers and the film at times paints the chaos with sound as well as picture. Dialog is easy to understand coming through the center channel.

Extras on the disc include commentary by Gilliam, which is quite lively at times. It is worth a viewing with commentary on just for this, whhich you can't say about all discs with commentary. There is a long 50 minutes making of feature about all the difficulties with the film and also some storyboards complete with intros. A popup features will entertain you throughout the film by giving you trivia and production facts which Sony names enhanced graphics and trivia track. It is a decent set of extras; all are in standard definition.

"The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen" is a wild and slightly long Terry Gilliam effort with some great sets and humor. It is certainly no "Brazil" but has the same flavor as that film with extravagant sets, a winning list of cast members and fun stories. The blu-ray disc enhances the picture and sound in a number of ways. People used to seeing CGI effects might find the effects in this film refreshing to watch as it was made before much CGI was used in films. Extras included make this blu-ray disc a worthy purchase.