The Brothers Grimm --- it's been a long time coming...

© Miramax

Title:
The Brothers Grimm (C+)
PH Release Date:
August 2005
Actors:
Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Monica Bellucci, Jonatahn Pryce, Lena Headey
Director:
Terry Gilliam
Screenplay:
Ehren Kruger
Editor / Music:
Lesley Walker / Dario Marianelli
Design / Photography:
Guy Dyas / Nicola Pecorini et al.
Producer:
Bob and Harvey Weinstein et al.
Studio:
Miramax Films


© Miramax

Show us the way, Grandmother Toad or I’ll smash your slimy green body into tiny green pieces!

Honey, you ain’t dreamin. The wanker is indeed back to bring you your weekly dose of movie crap after two months of absence. I apologize for my sudden disappearance on the face of the blog world but believe me when I say that the amount of break I had is certainly needed to stop me from bashing these movies with no real cause, which I’ll still end up doing otherwise. On with the show ei?

I saw this flick more than two months ago and I’ll try my best to recall as much as I can even if this means I would have to trash down some more recent precious memoirs like that of… never mind.


© Miramax

The movie is supposed to be an imagined biography of the brothers who gave life to most of the classic fairy tale stories we have today. Crappy as it may sound, but given the time they were born, they’ve come up with quite a number of great works spawned from a true artists’ brilliant imagination. Sad to say, the movie failed to show this, and fell greatly short from any level of the authors’ brilliance.

Okay, granting that it shouldn’t be taken seriously (which will be truly evident when you see this movie), I don’t think it will be much to ask to have at least a concrete idea of what they plan to do, accomplish and present. Aside from the fact that they want to incorporate the different fairy tales made by the Grimms into the plot (that somehow worked), there is no clear design for the movie as a whole.


© Miramax

I have not seen any movie of Terry Gilliam. They say he is a visionary of grandeur. Looking at this movie, I do not defy such title. However, for a visionary like him, how come he didn’t notice that his plot is way out of the rail and that he needed to stop working on the visuals and actually start digging for substance.

The way they presented the characters may be whimsical for some, but somehow, I found their personalities anything but refreshing. They were so typical for a buddy movie. I was expecting a little bit more.


© Miramax

Visually, the movie is spectacular. The production design is excellent together with art direction and costumes. It was finely edited, too bad there’s nothing much worth pondering on.

Matt Damon played Wilhelm Grimm with a performance as ridiculous as the movie itself. Heath Ledger is very enjoyable to watch. I no longer wonder as to why a lot of celebrities and even a studio backed out of this project, it is simply because it was a disaster waiting to happen. Good for them.


© Miramax

As a whole, the movie has some really magnificent scenes that will surely be enjoyable for the kids and adults as well. It has a brand of humor not exactly dismissible on a single exposure. However, despite all this, a movie, no matter how great it looks will always lean on its plot, and to be honest, there’s nothing much of that in here. If you are to see it, be careful not to fall under the spell of boredom.

Grading Sheet:
Story – 10%
Screenplay – 12%
Direction / Execution – 14%
Acting – 17%
Technical Aspect – 17%
Total: 70% = C+