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PLOT: A fanciful retelling of the tale of guys who gave us Snow White, Hansel & Gretel et al, in which the Grimms are portrayed as con-artists who spin tales and fight fake supernatural foes for money.
You wait seven years for a Terry Gilliam movie and it turns out to be Ghostbusters -- albeit set in 19th century Europe.
Which is to say that The Brothers Grimm -- which posits the fairy-tale authors as con-artists who spin tales and fight fake supernatural foes for money -- is Gilliam's most "commercial" movie ever. This will be bad news for some, but definitely not a worst case scenario.
Gilliam -- whose metier is the manically-driven 'art' comedy -- has broken his drought with a dark-but-family-friendly $80 million Hollywood FX-o-rama. Here that means zero dramatic tension and a hash of a script, with fun moments and mere flashes of his trademark madness. As a saving grace, there are a couple of insanely over-the-top performances from reliable character actors Jonathan Pryce and Peter Stormare.
If this is the sort of movie Gilliam has to make to pay the rent for another Brazil or Twelve Monkeys, so be it. At least Michael Bay didn't direct it.
The titular siblings -- Will and Jake Grimm -- are played by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, respectively, with the sort of insouciance and on-again/off-again accents we've come to expect from Hollywood cover-boys looking to stretch. Will is the realist for whom the supernatural is merely a gimmick for conning the rubes, while Jake is the dreamer who never gives up on the concept of magic. (Not only is it a dramatic counterpoint, but -- bonus! -- it helps us tell them apart).
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But Will's view prevails as the movie opens and we discover the Grimms on-scene, vanquishing a witch who's terrorized a village. The "witch" turns out to be the product of the Grimms' henchmen, and her dispatch is celebrated with cash, drunken revelry and the bedding of local wenches.
Unfortunately for the boys, they come to the attention of a Napoleonic military man named Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), whose control of an occupied German town has become shaky because children have gone missing in droves by apparent "supernatural" means. Reasoning that it takes conmen to catch conmen, he sends the Grimms to solve the mystery on pain of death. To the latter end, he attaches his most psychopathic soldier, an Italian named Cavaldi who not so secretly hates his masters ("Every word is an assassination!" he complains when forced to speak French). Delatombe and Cavaldi, in fact, are about two-thirds of the reason to see this movie.
Needless to say, the children are falling prey to real magic of the evil sort, involving a wicked queen (Monica Bellucci), a beautiful huntress/romantic interest (Lena Headey) and enchanted trees, horses, and a mud monster reminiscent of Ghostbusters' Stay-Puff't marshmallow guy. Along the way, the movie slyly references actual Grimm characters (Hansel & Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel etc.). Meanwhile, Will and Jake adopt a nearly permanent look of comic terror.
That Will and Jake will discover their brave faces is never in doubt, and at two hours you may get a little tired of waiting for the happy ending. But at least there's a fair bit of fun en route.
(This film is rated PG)