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The Brothers Grimm Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for violence, frightening sequences, and brief suggestive material) Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction Theater release: August 26, 2005 by Dimension Films Directed by: Terry Gilliam Runtime: 1 hour 59 minutes Cast: Matt Damon (Wilhelm Grimm), Heath Ledger (Jacob Grimm), Peter Stormare (Caravaldi), Monica Bellucci (The Mirror Queen), Jonathan Pryce (Delatombe), Lena Headey (Angelika) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Once upon a time—1796, to be precise—there were two brothers named Grimm. Jacob Grimm (Heath Ledger) believed in magic, but Wilhelm Grimm (Matt Damon) remained a staunch rationalist. In spite of their quarrels, they became partners in crime. Traversing French-occupied German territories, they pretended to save villages from demons, curses, and other disturbances with some sleight-of-hand and hocus-pocus.

But when Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), a general in Napoleon's conquering army, exposed these tricksters and strung them up to be tortured, it looked like Jacob and Will would meet a fate as unfortunate as their name. But Delatombe had other plans . . . much to their relief. Troubled by news from the town of Marbaden that children were being kidnapped by a wicked witch, Delatombe—a rationalist himself—decided that this too was the work of deceitful crooks. He decided to send small-time frauds to expose big-time frauds.

Heath Ledger and Matt Damon play the Grimm brothers

And so the brothers, monitored by an egomaniacal torturer named Caravaldi (Peter Stormare), set out to escape a "minimum sentence" of death by uncovering their competitors' charade. As they argued over the nature of the forest's sinister secrets, they gained a reluctant guide, a beautiful villager named Angelika (Lena Headey), and became rivals for her affections.

Turn the page. There's another fairy tale here that deserves our attention.

Once upon our time, there was a filmmaking genius—Terry Gilliam—who suffered for years under a terrible curse. (Okay, not really—but let's have some fun with this.) Blessed with a spectacular imagination, Gilliam, Monty Python's only American member, triumphantly delivered two successful studio features: The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys. But these were exceptions. Gilliam's other films (including Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), while spectacular and beloved, barely emerged from troubled productions, leaving the director battle-scarred, beleaguered, and burdened with a reputation as Hollywood's enfant terrible. Investors have repeatedly yanked funding out from under him. Wind, rain, and even the air force are numbered amongst his nemeses. For proof, rent Lost in La Mancha and watch the painful collapse of Gilliam's brilliant plans for an adaptation of Don Quixote.

Wilhelm (Matt Damon) puts his neck on the line

Thus, there's something poetic about the way his films consistently explore tensions between reason and madness, bureaucracy and mystery, institutions and ideas. In the seven years since Quixote's defeat, fans fretted that the system might have broken Gilliam's spirit. But now he's back with two new films (the second, Tideland, will be released in 2006).

So, has his "curse" finally been overcome? Alas, not yet.

The Brothers Grimm is a whimsical caper that takes audiences on a sick and twisted joyride through a wilderness alive with secrets. Unlike Disney, whose innocuous adaptations de-clawed the Grimms' original tales, Gilliam is interested in exploring dark corners of the source material: fables in which wolves have bloody teeth, children stumble into ugly consequences, villagers are as frightening as the curses that plague them, and characters often live unhappily ever after. The premise is perfect for this Quixotic filmmaker.

But you can now count screenwriters among the things that spoil Gilliam's fun. The Brothers Grimm, penned by Ehren Kruger (who also fumbled The Skeleton Key, The Ring Two, Reindeer Games, and Scream 3), feels like a first draft. It's full of clever nods to classic fairy tales. You'll catch glimpses of Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, even Jack and the magic beans. But in every scene, outrageous ideas relentlessly compete to make us gasp, laugh, cry, scream, or swoon. They bewilder when they mean to enthrall.

Lena Headey is the humorless heroine Angelika

Worse, it feels as though studio execs saw Michael Bay's The Island and decided that Grimm needed to be re-edited into a rapid-fire action flick. The special effects add insult to injury—they're cheap, unfinished, and unconvincing. The result is wildly uneven in tone and lacks the necessary character development to make us care about its heroes.

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