The Brothers Grimm
Studio: Dimension Films
Rated: PG-13
Website: http://miramax.com/thebrothersgrimm/
Release Date: 2005-08-26
Cast: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Monica Bellucci, Jonathan Pryce, Lena Headey
Director: Terry Gilliam
Screenwriter: Ehren Kruger
Music Score: Dario Marinelli
WorkNameSort: Brothers Grimm, The
Our Rating: 2.50
Terry Gilliam used to be like the funniest guy in anybody’s European History class; now, he’s the out-of-touch dork who comes in on Monday morning and drones on about the Renaissance fair he attended over the weekend while his victims secretly wish he was accosting somebody else. His newest, which re-envisions the Brothers Grimm as traveling con artists who get caught in a web of very familiar nursery-rhyme evils, is better than recent conceptual analogues like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Van Helsing but not by much. Underlit and overacted, the movie imparts the false impression that Gilliam has learned nothing about filmmaking since Jabberwocky. He’s still pushing the same nihilistic squalor and confusing it with satire, undermining his intelligence with show-offy set pieces grounded in animal cruelty and human secretions. The bits that show promise quickly succumb to vaudevillian overkill and plain old sloppy storytelling, and it doesn’t help that neither of the brothers (Matt Damon, Heath Ledger) is a legitimately embraceable or even interesting character. There may be a credible film in here somewhere, but it sorely needs a fully functioning director to pull it out.
This article appears in Aug 24-30, 2005.