The Brothers Grimm

Terry Gilliam, the American member of Monty Python who gave the group its quirky graphic designs but who did not perform with them, is back with The Brothers Grimm, and several critics are remarking that Gilliam is still providing more design than content with his films. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post remarks that Gilliam's films, which include Time Bandits, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, are jammed with stuff and all but empty of drama. In The Brothers Grimm, he writes, The art director has replaced the director. Yes, it looks terrific, yet it remains essentially inert. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times makes a similar point, praising the film as a work of limitless invention, but noting that the movie seems like a style in search of a purpose. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times suggests that Gilliam badly serves his two stars, Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, who are required to shout their lines and run circles around each other as they try to advance the plot. Lou Lumenick in the New York Post observes that the movie has rested on Miramax's shelves for more than a year, becoming just one of a series of duds [Co-chairmen Bob and Harvey Weinstein] are dumping before they leave Miramax next month. The movie does receive a few left-handed plaudits. Ty Burr in the Boston Globe calls it an absurd mess that's more entertaining than it has any right to be. Similarly, Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News describes it as a bit of a mess: sometimes delightful, sometimes tedious, always creative. Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News says that the problem with the film can be boiled down to two words: Excessive imagination. But Jim Fusilli in the Wall Street Journal gives it an all-out rave, calling it a wildly wondrous reinvention of the story of the chroniclers of dark, occasionally horrific, child-pleasing fairy tales ... a celebration of the power of stories.