The Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm is one mess of a movie. Will and Jacob Grimm, known for their collection of fairy tales, are the lead characters in the movie. The Grimm’s are charlatans and through the use of elaborate deceptions, perform demon banquishments. Neither of the brothers has ever seen the supernatural, and the main part of the movie has to deal with what finally happens when the brothers come face to face with an enchanted (and angry) forest.
The movie does not bring the fairy tales to life but instead works in references to them in subtle and at times, not so subtle ways. Jacob Grimm writes it all down, and enhances the truth along the way, so that we can say "aha!" that’s how the story began.
What’s good – The tower in the forest and the evil queen. This is the strongest storyline in the movie and Monica Bellucci is wonderful in this role. Grandmother Toad is fun. Looking for the background elements that refer to the fairy tales is fun. The Valet to the evil French guy is a crack-up. All of this is about 20 minutes of the movie.
Not so good – the movie rambles on and on about how the French torture everyone. The underlying social references drag the movie down into a pit so dark, that even the angry forest would refuse to go there. There are bugs and lots of them. How many spiders, scarabs, roaches, flies, and other insects does a movie need? The gross-out factor is high. Animals and people both are split apart.
This is a movie that should have been good. All of the elements are there but something just went wrong. Heath Ledger and Matt Damon do their best but it must have been hard for them to find something to work with. Jonathan Pryce was miscast as the villian.
So, how bad was it really? The front section of the audience was mostly people in their early 20’s. The blue flash of cell phone text paging was continuously happening in that section. Bored. The 60 + crowd next to me wanted to leave after the first 5 minutes but since they paid the $10, they were staying. The wife kept dozing off and snored off and on throughout the movie. She’d wake up and ask her husband what she missed and he’d reply truthfully, "nothing." Everyone else in-between 30-59, well we were too old to text page in a theater, and too young to get away with snoring, so we just endured.
As for Will and Jacob Grimm, well this is a fairy tale and we all know the ending. It’s the process that’s painful.
The movie does not bring the fairy tales to life but instead works in references to them in subtle and at times, not so subtle ways. Jacob Grimm writes it all down, and enhances the truth along the way, so that we can say "aha!" that’s how the story began.
What’s good – The tower in the forest and the evil queen. This is the strongest storyline in the movie and Monica Bellucci is wonderful in this role. Grandmother Toad is fun. Looking for the background elements that refer to the fairy tales is fun. The Valet to the evil French guy is a crack-up. All of this is about 20 minutes of the movie.
Not so good – the movie rambles on and on about how the French torture everyone. The underlying social references drag the movie down into a pit so dark, that even the angry forest would refuse to go there. There are bugs and lots of them. How many spiders, scarabs, roaches, flies, and other insects does a movie need? The gross-out factor is high. Animals and people both are split apart.
This is a movie that should have been good. All of the elements are there but something just went wrong. Heath Ledger and Matt Damon do their best but it must have been hard for them to find something to work with. Jonathan Pryce was miscast as the villian.
So, how bad was it really? The front section of the audience was mostly people in their early 20’s. The blue flash of cell phone text paging was continuously happening in that section. Bored. The 60 + crowd next to me wanted to leave after the first 5 minutes but since they paid the $10, they were staying. The wife kept dozing off and snored off and on throughout the movie. She’d wake up and ask her husband what she missed and he’d reply truthfully, "nothing." Everyone else in-between 30-59, well we were too old to text page in a theater, and too young to get away with snoring, so we just endured.
As for Will and Jacob Grimm, well this is a fairy tale and we all know the ending. It’s the process that’s painful.
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