There's no happy ending for The Brothers Grimm, or a happy beginning or middle, for that matter.
That's the one consistent thing in Terry Gilliam's latest film, which is plagued by inconsistency.
Certainly, you expect some weirdness walking into one of Gilliam's movies. After all, this is the man who crafted the ``Monty Python'' animation, who has brought fantastical figures to the screen as the director of films including The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This is the man whose famously failed attempt at making a wildly ambitious Don Quixote movie was the subject of its own documentary, Lost in la Mancha.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF FOX MOVIES
But those films had the benefit of a singular vision. Working from a script by Ehren Kruger, writer of The Ring movies, Gilliam is all over the place here. It's as if he doesn't know what he wants his film to be. A loopy farce? A lavish costume piece? A high-energy action film? At times it even feels as if this is Gilliam's anti-war film, framed within the context of a comedic fairy tale.
In an enchanted forest outside a German village in 1798, trees crawl and branches snarl, and a wolf turns into a man before turning back into a wolf again, but you can find your way out of the darkness by licking the head of the wise Grandmother Toad. (Though for all the film's elaborate pretensions, the effects look unexpectedly schlocky; that was true at times in Gilliam's Time Bandits, too, but there the aesthetic seemed
intentional.)
Classic characters like Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel come and go, but they aren't used to their full potential, they appear so randomly they seem like afterthoughts. Although the Gingerbread Man, who forms from a glob of black goo at the bottom of a well, is awfully cute. Then he eats a small child.
In the midst of all this madness are Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as brothers Will and Jacob Grimm, fictionalized incarnations of the real-life brothers behind all those famous fairy tales, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. Con men who make their money pretending to drive demons and monsters out of small towns, Will and Jake are found out and forced to investigate a truly cursed forest where little girls are disappearing.
The actors seem to be having a good time bouncing off each other, with Damon reveling in the flashier of the two roles as the more gregarious Grimm (and affecting a passable British accent). But neither brother is terribly well fleshed-out, though a subplot harkening to their childhood -- and an unfortunate acquisition of magic beans -- is meant to convey longtime resentments.
So when Jacob pleads to Will, ``You're my brother -- I want you to believe in me,'' the moment lacks the resonance for which it strives. Similarly, a love triangle between the brothers and Angelika (Lena Headey), a beautiful and butt-kicking forest tracker whose two sisters are among the missing, rings hollow and feels tacked-on.
On horseback with her long hair and striking features, Headey is the most dynamic of all the movie's creatures. Meanwhile, Gilliam squanders stage veteran Jonathan Pryce in the role of General Delatombe, the French governor who has taken over the German countryside (and sent the Grimms on their mission). The character is smothered by stilted dialogue and a broad, fake accent.
As an Italian henchman
assigned to follow and torment the brothers, Peter Stormare is even more over the top, which is jarringly uncharacteristic. Stormare is an actor who's most powerful doing more with less -- just look at his performance as a mute hit man in Fargo. Here he's a grating stereotype.
Then again, nearly everything about the film grates. Fairy tales are supposed to be a little scary, The Brothers Grimm too often feels like an overbearing, interminable nightmare.
The Brothers Grimm, a Dimension Films and MGM Pictures release, runs 118 minutes. One-and-a-half stars out of four.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at