This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate
The Brothers Grimm: Gothic fantasy. Starring Matt Damon, Heath Ledger and Monica Bellucci. Directed by Terry Gilliam. (PG-13. 119 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm" is a whole lot of maggots, English accents and frenzied energy, a virtual nonstop bombardment of little woods creatures and special effects, with an enchanted forest, walking trees and a menacing blob that turns into the Gingerbread Man. It's a busy movie, but its busy-ness has little to with story and character and everything to do with an exuberant impulse to throw stuff on a screen. Thus, its energy is impressive, but its effects are scattered.
For sure, the energy expended on screen stays there and is in no way passed on to the audience. In fact, "The Brothers Grimm" -- with all its over-the-top performances, flashy Gothic action and computer-generated creatures -- becomes boring. It's the cinematic equivalent of an all-dessert meal: After the initial jolt, the lack of any real nourishment is apparent, and it becomes a struggle to stay awake. From a third of the way in through to the finish, the film is a frisky but unremitting slog.
This fanciful telling of the Grimm Brothers story presents Will (Matt Damon) and Jake (Heath Ledger)in their pre-storytelling days. They're a pair of charlatans working their con through Germany in the late 18th century. They arrive, convince entire towns that the people there are under demonic attack and then set up fake exorcisms for which they're handsomely paid.
Such thievery gets them into trouble with the French authorities, namely General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), the military man in charge of the French occupation (this is the Napoleonic era), and his right-hand man, the torturer Cavaldi (Peter Stormare). It's symptomatic of the out-of-control tone and tiresome nature of "The Brothers Grimm" that Pryce seems to have been directed to make his French accent sound as phony as possible and Stormare was set loose to be incredibly annoying -- flouncing and preening, snarling and declaiming at every opportunity. It actually hurts to watch him.
Instead of being executed by the authorities, the Grimms are freed on the condition that they can uncover the reason why children are disappearing from a small village. The townspeople, responding to a strange rumbling in the woods, believe something supernatural is behind the disappearances, and the general's idea is that the Grimms, being fakers, will be able to expose the fakers who are terrorizing the people. But -- and this is where the main story kicks in -- the Grimms soon start suspecting that they might, for the first time, be up against something real.
The movie attempts to make a meaningful contrast between Jake, a believer and a romantic, and Will, a pragmatic skeptic. Yet despite an appealing actor in each role, both characters come across as repellent. Will is a know-it-all with a mean streak, and Jake is too earnest and nervous to engage our sympathy. They're neither flashy crooks nor charismatic heroes. They're just two guys in the woods, surrounded by computerized animals, putting audiences to sleep all over America.
"The Brothers Grimm" swings from whimsy to adventure, with each swing into whimsy defeating all sense of excitement or danger. It's partly a send-up and partly a sincere attempt at an adult fairy tale, but mainly it's erratic, whatever Gilliam decided to try on any given day. As a capable pathfinder whose sisters have disappeared into the forest, Lena Headey manages not to succumb to the frenetic energy surrounding her -- and escapes with her dignity. Monica Bellucci, as a beautiful princess, is convincingly beautiful and princess-like, but the knowledge that the character she plays is actually 500 years old takes some of the edge off her allure.
-- Advisory: This film contains gun violence and frightening sequences.