The Brothers Grimm is almost Kaufman-esque, in a way, as a story about stories. By extension, then, I suppose it's the
Pirates of the Caribbean of Charlie Kaufman stories - it doesn't take itself too seriously. But at the same time, it's a Terry Gilliam flick, which means
The Brothers Grimm is superlatively visually stimulating, but coherence is not to be expected.
Fortunately, The Brothers Grimm is to date the most accessible Gilliam movie (excepting the brilliant Monty Python and the Holy Grail) I've seen.
These ain't your momma's Grimm Brothers, that's for sure. As portrayed by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, Will and Jake - not Wilhelm and Jakob - are the 19th century equivalent of Ghostbusters, liberating French-occupied Germany from all manner of witches and demons. We quickly learn that the Grimm enterprise is a sham, as Will & Jake are staging superstitious happenings in order to reap the profits for "defeating" the apparitions. Their fraud is unearthed by the villainous French General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) and his Italian torturer Cavaldi (Peter Stormare, best known as the killer from
Fargo, Karl Hungus/Uli Kunkel from
The Big Lebowski, and rogue electrician Slippery Pete from "Seinfeld"), who force the brothers Grimm to solve the mystery of the missing girls of Marbaden, a forest town filled with every fairy tale denizen you can imagine.
Coherent? Certainly. Spectacular? Not quite. Fun? If you're into this sort of thing.
The fun in the film comes from two places: the cast and the script. The cast isn't quite impeccable, since they never manage to steal the show from the vivacious visuals Gilliam provides, but they all do a nice job of creating memorable if cartoonish characters. Damon and Ledger (both of whom can do no wrong in my book, though I would have liked to see the original choice for Will - Johnny Depp) are the stars, and they've got a real chemistry as brothers that suggests a long history between the two. Ladies man Will often clashes with bookish Jake, and both Damon and Ledger do a solid job of instantly creating a plausible characterization and sticking to it throughout. Ledger's accent, though, is a touch distracting, an interesting combination of Sean Connery and The Joker circa
The Dark Knight. Pryce and Stormare are far grosser caricatures, underspeaking a typically British xenophobia of all things continental; Pryce is a knockout as always, and Stormare brings his conventional slimy foreigner aura to his role. Lena Headey (the queen from
300) is negligible as guide/love interest, but Monica Bellucci - as the eerie Mirror Queen - carries well the seductive cruelty of her witchy character.
The script, tangled though it is in places (and admittedly muddy in others) is fun because it's filled to the brim with references, homages, and nods of the head toward the more commonly known career of the Grimm brothers and the fairy tale canon on the whole. Keep your eyes peeled for Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, and even The Gingerbread Man (look out, cookie from Shrek). Of course, knowing the identity of the little girl wearing a red hood in the forest isn't essential, but it helps make the later joke - in which Jake jots down in his journal "Little Red Riding Cape" - more entertaining.
I admitted the film is muddy, and it's classic Gilliam mud. After knocking out essential exposition within twenty minutes, the film dispenses with most claims to a plot and instead focuses on the Grimm dynamic and the eye-popping spectacle sequences (like moving trees, cobwebbed horses, and mud with a face). Consequently, the movie gets a little difficult to follow, especially when the narrative jumps quickly from scene to scene with little but imagination to fill in the gaps. What saves The Brothers Grimm from being another Gilliam headscratcher is its existence in a fantasy world where normal rules don't apply. I often ask of a Gilliam film, "How could this happen? What exactly is happening?" Here, the film makes up its own rules as it goes along, answering the question by saying, "X happens because that's the way fairy tales work."
The Brothers Grimm might not leave viewers happily ever after, but you'll at least turn the page with a smile on your face.
The Brothers Grimm is inscribed with a rating of "PG-13 for violence, frightening sequences and brief suggestive material." Violence and terror come on the whole from spooky creatures and foreboding forest environs, which some younger viewers might find more eerie than entertaining. As for suggestive material, Will is implied numerous times to be quite the ladies' man, but this is subtle and not prevalent.
Dredd (2012) – I’ll
admit right off the bat that I’ve never seen the 1995 Sylvester Stallone
treatment of the hyperviolent 2000 AD
comics character, though I’ve only heard bad things. If those bad things are true, I’m confident
in saying that Dredd is a finer take
on that character, but even better – it’s a solid film regardless. Karl Urban stars as the titular Judge Dredd,
a law enforcement officer with a permanent scowl and a relentless penchant for
any-means-necessary punishment. Training
rookie Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) on a routine triple homicide, Dredd becomes
the target of drug lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) in a locked-down slum
building. First of all, Urban looks exactly like the comic book character
(and it helps that he never removes his helmet), and he captures the no-nonsense
sneer with aplomb. I was less convinced
by Thirlby’s portrayal of Anderson, though she holds her own by the time the
film reaches its climax. Major kudos go
to director Pete Travis, who keeps the action sequences engaging without
feeling like we’re watching a video game and who deftly walks that line between
black humor and tonal inconsistency.
Indeed, the film takes itself just
seriously enough that its violent excesses result in some fantastic eyeball
kicks rather than a series of gory grotesqueries. While Dredd
is far from the A-list comic book entertainment we’ve come to expect from the
likes of Nolan, Whedon, and (most recently) Synder, it’s a fine second-tier
comic book movie in the same vein as Rodriguez’s Sin City – a tonally and visually faithful adaptation bringing the
source material to life at the hands of (as Smilin’ Stan might say) some true
believers. 
