The Brothers Grimm (2005): Dir: Terry Gilliam / Cast: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Lena Headey, Peter Storemare, Jonathan Pryce: Filled with imaginative images of werewolves, witches, mysterious trees, an enchanted ax, and a woman that turns to glass. It regards the dangers of fairy tales as Will and Jacob Grimm are forced to rescue several kidnapped virgin children who have disappeared into the enchanted forest. Screenplay is filled with brilliant imagery as expected from the imagination of director Terry Gilliam whose impressive visual resume includes Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger are well cast as the heroes who earn a living by deceiving towns with false exorcisms. Ledger is the one who believes in fairy tales while Damon has grown beyond his youth years. Peter Stormare is hilarious as their arresting officer who fumbles at his job and is constantly insulted by higher powers who see him as an imbecile but he will conclude with greater perception. Lena Headey plays a gutsy archer with an intriguing back story regarding her father. Jonathan Pryce is amusing as a cruel French military commander who grows weary of Storemare's constant fumbling. Easily one of Gilliam's best films as he references fairy tales with parodies of The Gingerbread Man, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and other grim stories. Score: 10 / 10

I personally believe this movie is a bit underrated, criticized harshly and unfairly. The Brothers Grimm is quite entertaining - yes it has flaws but so do many films. It is not a perfect movie but it's a pretty good fantasy adventure.What I did not like about this movie: The Mudd Monster (or whatever it was suppose to be) that was just too much for my taste. And I did not like the literal shattering of the wicked queen witch at the end of the film... the shattering mirror yes, queen no.What I did like about the film: Everything else. The story was fun. The acting is good. But my favorite part is the visuals - it is visually stimulating (costumes, sets, cinematography, and the action).Like others that have reviewed this film: I too was reminded of Pirates of the Caribbean when watched The Brothers Grimm. Hidlick and Bunst reminded me a lot of Pintel and Ragetti. Lena Headey as Angelika is much like Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann. The French Army is reminiscent of The Royal Navy.Interesting enough, the Wiki says that Gilliam's first choice for the role of Will Grimm was Johnny Depp. Which is odd since the movie (BG) reminds me of PotC just a little bit. Brothers Grimm is nothing like Pirates of the Caribbean in any way - just some of the characters reminds me of the PotC in a roundabout way.All in all it's a pretty good fantasy film.8.5/10

Back when I was a teen there was a Cinerama production of The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm that starred Laurence Harvey and Karl Boehm as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. It was a delightful film that had some biographical material, but was more an excuse to put on screen, three of their collected fairy tales. Even adults could enjoy the film and one can still enjoy it today, but it ought to be seen on the big screen.Half a century later and we get an entirely different view of the brothers in The Brothers Grimm with Heath Ledger and Matt Damon as the folk lore scholars. But reading the Wikipedia article on the brothers you will not get the view that this film gives us of them as a pair of 19th century con artists. These two make a living off the fears and superstitions of a lot of peasants. They go to places there rumor has it a local curse is on the place. The two with a pair of dimwitted helpers put on a show for the locals with methods that the Ghostbusters would envy. In fact up to this point the film reminds me of a combination of The Ghostbusters and The Lavendar Hill Mob.But one fine day Damon and Ledger come upon a village with a real curse and an enchanted forest. Since they are folklorists they have to call on a store of accumulated knowledge to defeat the forest demons.50 years later with much improved special effects with computer graphics we have a film more likely to scare and no doubt people go to films to be scared. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger head a fine cast and certainly the time and place of a disunited Germany occupied by Napoleon's troops is better displayed.Still the fantasy of the Cinerama film is to be preferred.

A very funny film which is nothing but a patchwork of Grimm characters and Grimm fairy tales, all mixed up and all crisscrossed together with some unavoidable details or situations, though there is no kissing of frogs, yet a little bit of licking a toad, and of course the kissing of a princess who is a witch and yet a princess and finally the kissing of a Grimm brother by the witch princess, or is it Veronica, and all that works.Nature is totally crazy with walking trees, burning forests and magic towers in the middle of a bewitched country. The Grimm Brothers are nothing but perambulating crooks that make believe they can kill or capture witches and other wizards and free villages of all the bad demons they can imagine. There are so many suckers in this world that the Grimm brothers or their modern equivalents can make a fortune and at the same time have great fun. Walt Disney or Miramax are the least offensive ones among those.But nothing is simple in Germany in 1811 under the occupation of Napoleon's troops. The frogs are no longer the jumping neobatrachias we enjoy in ponds and other lakes, but these strange human beings wearing tricolor feathers on their heads and advocating the non existence of fairies, witches and other supernatural beings inhabiting the minds of superstitious simple minded people. They are not afraid of what does not exist though they are ready to fight a real battle against that haunted forest.The Frenchies have also brought with them snails and they use them to torture good Germans who cannot stand snails of course, whereas Frenchies are eating them, generally cooked in some tomato stew. There are all kinds of tastes in this world but Frenchies sure have the most surprising – and disgusting – ones. Entertaining and never really humdrum because of the innumerable distortions performed on the tales we know they introduce at every single moment of the story. And they destroy the witch who believes she is the most beautiful girl in the world since her mirror is telling her so with the typical action dictated by the simple logic of a child: break her mirror and she will be shattered into smithereens.And then they can be happy finally like good boys and good girls and we will not speak of the children they will make because after all we are working for a family audience and in a world where marriage is for everyone and not only for those who can collect little babies in lilies or whatever other flower or accept babies delivered to them by some storks. Let the others adopt some orphans.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU