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| Brothers Grimm, The |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 120 |
| Public Rating: 6.60 (20 votes) |
Director: Terry Gilliam |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Fantasy/Action/Adventure |
Year: 2005 |
| Writer(s): Ehren Kruger |
| Distributor: Miramax |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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The Brothers Grimm, Terry Gilliam's (Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) first film in seven years (notwithstanding his failed adaptation of Miguel Cervantes Don Quixote, captured for posterity in Lost in La Mancha), marks a welcome return for one of cinema's preeminent visual stylists, even if The Brothers Grimm proves a critique once leveled at another visual stylist, Ridley Scott (for Blade Runner, a triumph of production design over storytelling. The flaws, in characters, characterizations, plot and plot turns, can be ultimately traced to the screenplay by Ehren Kruger that cheaply substitutes bombastic, messy, and noisy action scenes for a compelling storyline or characters with anything approaching depth or complexity. Instead, we get a cod-Freudian (and reductive) sibling, with Wilhelm representing rationality and empiricism and Jacob representing creativity and imagination (a favorite subject of Gilliam's, with the closest parallel found in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen).
After a brief prologue that sets up the central conflict between the titular characters, The Brothers Grimm jumps forward in time, as future storytellers/ethnologists Wilhem (Matt Damon) and Jacob Grimm (Heath Ledger) enter a French-occupied town in Germany, ostensibly to release the townspeople from the malevolent actions of an undead witch. Wilhem and Jacob, however, are far from the historical figures that share their name. Con artists, the brothers travel from town to town, collecting huge sums from the gullible locals in exchange for a ritual exorcism or two. As typed from the prologue onward, Wilhem is the cool rationalist, but nonetheless guided by his appetites (for money and women). The spectacle-wearing Jacob is, of course, Wilhelm's opposite, a believer in fanciful, fantastic stories (Jacob helpfully keeps a journal, noting the richly varied details of his experiences).
The military governor administering the French-occupied areas of Germany, Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), concerned, for purely selfish reasons, by the disappearance of local girls from the village of Marbaden, forcibly enlists the brothers' help. The girls, it seems, have been kidnapped from the village and into the nearby forest. Wilhelm and Jacob find themselves confronted with the fantastic made real, with themselves as the active, and actively in danger, protagonists. In need of a forest guide, the brothers Grimm employ Angelika (Lena Headey), trained by her absent father as a hunter (and guide). Angelica is first introduced in grisly fashion, first skinning a kill, and then eviscerating the dead animal while Wilhelm and Jacob look on uncomfortably. Wilhelm and Jacob are also limited in their movements by Delatombe's chief henchman and expert torturer, Cavaldi (Peter Stormare, hammy and overused).
The trail leads, inevitably, to an enchanted, cursed forest defended by semi-sentient, ambulatory trees and a fierce wolf creature, and ruled from an unreachable castle tower, the Tower of Charot, by the Mirror Queen (Monica Belluci), a beautiful, if vain queen who obtained eternal life, living inside her mirror, unchanged by time, but living in a state of eternal rot outside the mirror. Wilhelm and Jacob must overcome their intra-personal conflict (based on a cod-Freudian backstory), French meddling and oppression, and the Mirror Queen's nefarious plans. Meanwhile, the book smart Jacob finds himself attracted by the rough-hewn, independent-minded Angelika, with his smooth-talking, womanizing brother as potential rival for her affections.
Surprisingly (for a Gilliam film), The Brothers Grimm suffers from an overabundance of elaborate, furiously staged action scenes, most used to cover for inadequate characterizations or logical plot development. The enchanted, cursed forest becomes the central staging area for the confrontation between the brothers and the Mirror Queen (who rules the forest). We get not one, not two, but three extended scenes in and around the Mirror Queen's castle tower. The first meant to provide some misdirection (upon arrival at the castle tower, Wilhelm immediately suggests a return to the village just as night is about to fall). The second scene functions as a false climax, sending the brothers back into the village and into Delatombe's arms. The third scene finally serves as the climax proper, with all the forces massed against the brothers facing them one last time (and, conveniently, in one location). Instead, Gilliam and Kruger missed the opportunity to add the necessary layers of complications and obstacles for the brothers, in each case missing sight of the castle tower (if getting closer thanks to new information or magical weapons) before setting the climax there.
The special effects range from the believable (e.g., the ambulatory trees and digital backgrounds) to the ridiculous. In particular, the audience is “treated” to several man-to-wolf (and back again) transformations, all done through computer animation. Neither the CGI transformation nor the end result is credible, making the scenes featuring the wolf risible. Kruger and Gilliam's attempts at humor are equally scattershot and messy, including far too many misses, even as one or two of the jokes obviously reference Monty Python's brand of anarchic, subversive humor. But even as the humor falls flat, with characterizations and conflicts ending in predictable resolutions, and overlong action scenes, Terry Gilliam's keen sense of visual composition, aided by the production design (especially the dark, forbidding, enchanting forest of gnarled trees and twisted roots), opulent period costuming, and cinematography (Gilliam favors swooping, operatic crane shots to open and close scenes) make The Brothers Grimm highly watchable (and entertaining on the level of spectacle). Others might find themselves exhausted by Gilliam's overindulgence in sensory overload well before the end credits.
Readers of the “real” Brothers Grimm will find references or major plot points lifted from the more popular or familiar fairytales the brothers collected in the early 19th century, including “Little Red Riding Hood, “Snow White,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Rapunzel,” and in an extraneous scene, "The Gingerbread Man."
© Mel Valentin, 26th August, 2005
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