Review

Review Date: 28-August-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

The Brothers Grimm (2005)

I can think of only one reason why anyone should bother with "The Brothers Grimm:" it provides ample opportunity to watch great performers in a bad movie. Sometimes you can plumb the depths of an actor's talent in a fiasco more than a hit, and in this case it's true of both Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. Often unfairly pegged as pretty boys, these men add a touch of class and pathos to "The Brothers Grimm" that its design and execution lack. Unfortunately, though, they're not enough to save it.

The movie is set in Germany circa 1800, where siblings-with-a-past Will and Jacob Grimm (Damon and Ledger, respectively) make a crooked living off the average person's fear of the supernatural. Working from Jacob's encyclopedic knowledge of folklore, the brothers and their henchmen stage elaborate hauntings, terrorize a few witnesses, and then charge exorbitant fees to rid their gullible prey from incarnations of evil. The scam is going well until the Grimms are commandeered by an invading French general (Jonathan Pryce) to squelch the superstitious unrest of a village whose girls are disappearing in the forest. (One gets abducted while wearing a red cape, another wanders off from her brother Hansel, etc., etc.) The assignment becomes a full-blown adventure as the brothers encounter the power of a genuine witch (Monica Bellucci) who puts both their courage and loyalty to the test.

The moral of this fairy tale hodgepodge has something to do with the clash between Old World magic (embodied by German peasants and the dreamy Jacob) and New World rationality (embodied by Napoleon's army and the practical Will), but the message gets bogged down in an excess of absurdity, not to mention poor special effects and choppy editing. The most egregious examples of the absurd category are an Italian mercenary who is unintelligible and almost unbearable to watch (Peter Stormare) and a Xenaesque woodswoman who catches both brothers' eyes with her anachronistically perfect skin and teeth (Lena Headey). As if they weren't bad enough, director Terry Gilliam lets the picture ramble in the murk of his enchanted forest, emerging only now and then to hazard an attempt at humor, interpretation, or character development. He seems interested only in the feel of a spell, not its significance, which is why Damon and Ledger stand out. Left on their own, they must spin their own tale of conflict and resolution, and they almost let you see it through the trees.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.