Rating of
2.5/4
"The Brothers Grimm" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 03/26/12
Terry Gilliam once again puts his post modern spin on Gothic fantasy, and once again it's very much a matter of taste as to whether you are going to enjoy it. The Brothers Grimm are reinvented as a pair of con artists who set up fake hauntings and ride into town to banish the demon for a modest fee (kind of like a Medieval Ghostbusters). Until one day they are caught and sent to investigate a series of child kidnappings and realise that it's the real deal. All of Gilliam's trademark touches are here including a lot of humour, some gorgeous production design and a quirky spin on existing myths and fairytales. It's kind of like a buddy action version of his heroic failure The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen and Heath Ledger and Matt Damon have some real comic chemistry as the bumbling anti-heroes, complete with amusing Spinal Tap-esque English accents. The plotting is a lot tighter and more focused than Munchausen though, and it has a lot more narrative momentum. It does lose a little impetus for the climax as it's a little overly convoluted and relies too much on the bad guys; Peter Stormare hams it up mercilessly and despite looking the part of the fairest of them all, Monica Bellucci is actually pretty bad as the evil queen. By far it's biggest problem is actually how much it resembles Sleepy Hollow and therefore suffers in comparison to Tim Burton's clearly superior film, but it is entertaining and certainly did not deserve the unwelcoming reception it got from some critics.
