There appear to be two faces of director Terry Gilliam
working today. The first crafted the Rubik’s cube
of a mystery “12 Monkeys” and the perplexing
masterpiece “ Brazil.” The other wandered around
the vast set of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” leaving
us with a listless, elephant of an epic. With references
to fairy tales and melding of fact and fiction, I prayed
the first Terry Gilliam had directed “The Brother’s
Grimm.” Unfortunately we instead have received another
creaky, slow, humorless comedy in ancient times from Mr.
Gilliam.
Two brothers (Matt Damon and Heath Ledger) travel Europe,
ridding villages of witches and goblins and trolls. Con
artists, who have been staging all the hauntings, Will
and Jacob Grimm discovery a true enchanted forest, one
haunted by a Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci, “Passion
of the Christ”).
Never has a story with such promise been so squandered.
The real Grimm brothers wrote such legendary tales as Cinderella,
Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel. Writer Ehren Kruger had
the potential to fantasize the impetus for each tale. However,
while modern classics like Stephen Sondheim’s “Into
The Woods” and Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked” twisted
the tales we know into fresh deconstructed stories, Kruger
merely tosses in references as if they were Mel Brooks
puns. The images of a boy turning to a gingerbread man,
a lost maiden growing glass slippers and a girl in a red
cape being captured by a wolf could have forged a live-action “Shrek.” Instead
nothing jells.
The acting is fine, particularly Peter Stromare (“ Fargo”)
as a clownish Italian officer who becomes obsessed with
the boys, but none of the actors appear to understand Gilliam’s
tone, probably because he himself seems lost.
The effects, which include menacing trees, lycanthropes
and a shattered glass woman, excels where the story fails.
A sluggish misfire, “The Brothers Grimm” required
a wittier writer than the instigator of “Ring 2” and “Scream
3.” Terry Gilliam usually works with top screenwriters
like Richard LaGravenese, Tom Stoppard and his Monty Python
buddies. He should be able to distinguish between a script
that glistens and a script that extinguishes. Grade: Red-Eye:
B+; Brothers Grimm: D+ |
