The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
(E1 Entertainment)
(out of four)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is billed as a “fantastical morality tale,” but it’s really a fantastic mess that begins with a ghoulish reminder — albeit accidental — of star Heath Ledger’s death.
In January 2008, Ledger, 28, was filming the lead role of Tony, a modern-day man who braves a hellish universe to go on a romantic rescue mission, when he succumbed to an accidental drug overdose.
Ledger’s death left director Terry Gilliam with a critical casting problem to solve. But the young actor’s friends — Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell — stepped in to help, volunteering to replace Ledger in the fantasy sequences needed to complete the film.
But their generosity was for naught.
The four actors playing one person actually succeed quite well; they just have nothing of substance to do in this tangled tale of saving a soul from the devil’s grasp.
Set in modern London, the film has a lively premise and beginning. Christopher Plummer plays the title doc, a soothsayer drawn from the Gilliam idiom of eccentrics, who runs a travelling theatre show that contains a magic mirror that doubles as a dimensional portal.
Parnassus is supposedly thousands of years old, yet he has a 15-year-old daughter named Valentina (Lily Cole). Doc’s troupe also includes a cranky dwarf (Verne Troyer) and a naive young assistant named Anton (Andrew Garfield). The arrival of outsider Tony, following his rescue from an apparent suicide attempt, upsets the delicate anti-social order.
Gilliam reunited with Charles McKeown, his co-writer on The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, to pen this pile of rubbish, but they ran out of ideas long before Ledger’s sad demise.
Extras include a commentary by Gilliam, a deleted scene (with Gilliam commentary), a Heath Ledger wardrobe test and several featurettes.