The Brothers Grimm

Whenever Terry Gilliam puts out a new movie it’s an event. But anytime he puts out TWO movies in one year it’s a fucking whirlwind of cinematic pleasures. Unfortunately, we’ll have a wait a little while until Tideland comes out. Until then, let’s take a look at some previews. THEN we’ll get to the first Gilliam movie this year. WOLF CREEK—Supposedly based on a true story (according to IMDb it’s actually based on TWO strings of murders), this is the story of, surprise surprise, a group of kids on a trip who get sidetracked by a stalled car and their own murders. It’s a bunch of no named hot actors against a bunch of no named creepy actors. It’s an Australian film that apparently has gotten a lot of good buzz at festivals.

What’s really interesting is that I don’t remember anyone having accents. Hmmm. Re-dubbed?

Oh well. The trailer looked pretty creepy, but it didn’t look like anything new, either. We’ll see.

THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED—Who told Disney that we were interested in watching people play golf in the early part of the century? Sure, it’s a true story about a 20-year-old kid (Shia LaBeouf) who took the world by storm (as much as a golfer could in those days) by beating all of the old folks in the US Open. But it looks about as boring as I heard The Legend Of Bagger Vance was. And this doesn’t have the benefit of having Charlize Theron to look at. All it has is Joe Jackson playing the piano.

Too bad, Shia. Keep looking for a hit.

AEON FLUX—Wow. This one looks like it could be really cool. It also looks like it could be utter shit. But with Charlize in the title role, at least we’ll have really beautiful eye candy. And she wears really tight spandex!

I don’t know too much about the plot except that Aeon is an assassin in the future. And she’s hot. And she used to be on MTV in animated form. I never watched it, but DAMN do I remember it. It kind of looked like Heavy Metal if I remember right. Can’t wait for this one.

Now, back to Gilliam.

Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm (Matt Damon and Heath Ledger) make money in a rather strange way. They run from town to town in 1800s Germany driving different evil spirits out of the towns. Of course, these are all spirits that they placed there. Think of it as The Frighteners, but the “spirits” are living people instead of Sinbad’s ghost. (Ok, I know it wasn’t Sinbad. But it may as well have been.)

Unfortunately, Germany has been taken over by the French. And General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) isn’t too keen on the Brothers’ line of work. He knows that they’re hucksters and wants to put them out of business. But he also knows that he needs to keep his German subjects happy. So he sends them with a small battalion lead by Cavaldi (Peter Stormare) to a small village that has been plagued by something that steals their little girls.

This time, though, the monster is real.

Writer Ehren Kruger (The Ring and Arlington Road) managed to drop references to just about every fairy tale that is generally known and is credited to the Brothers. (There are probably even a few that aren’t generally known. Anybody know something about a horse swallowing people?) And he’s kept his script light and fun in spite of the incredibly dark goings on. Quite a feat, actually.

Gilliam puts his normal brilliance into the set design and style of the film. I don’t think he could make a truly bad or ugly film. It’s beautiful to look at and amazingly intricate. But that goes without saying, really.

Matt and Heath work really well together, although there are a few times where Heath looks really creepy. When he’s talking to their guide/love interest Angelika (Lena Headey) I’m surprised that she wasn’t constantly trying to get away from him. He just kind of slimed all over her. And he was the nervous, shy one!

A lot of folks have been crapping on the movie. And here’s why, I think: it slows down a bit in the middle and the story is pretty much just there so that Gilliam can wow us with what’s on the screen. It’s not a very deep story. But I also don’t really know that it’s supposed to be very deep. This is a Gilliam popcorn movie. It’s just a fun flick with no ulterior motives. (Although I could make a case for it being a pretty political statement with the French being the American Army and the Germans being Iraqis—especially towards the end where the French start punishing the Germans for the evil in the woods even though they have nothing to do with it, but that might be digging too deep.) It’s certainly not perfect. In fact, it’s at times pretty deeply flawed. But that’s almost part of its charm. It’s still a lot of fun.

If you’re so inclined to go see this flick, keep all of this in mind. And try not to stare at the Mirror Queen’s (Monica Bellucci) breasts too much. She is beautiful, though.