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by R.J. Carter Published: December 19, 2005
Which isn't at all what happens here, although at times it comes deucedly close. In Gilliam's vision, the Grimm brothers go from being the scholars they were to being a pair of hoaxters, preying on the superstitions of the people around them. They'll set up a seemingly supernatural situation with their paid actors, and then -- for a fee, of course -- will exorcise the problem through extraordinarily complex means. Anyone who's seen "Dragonheart" or "The Frighteners" can probably guess which way this plot may go, and to a degree, they'll be right. The Grimms are caught by a French general (Jonathan Pryce) who says there is someone else like the Grimms pulling pranks on a village in French-occupied Germany (which I thought a bit of fantasy myself stranger than anything the Grimms had told, but apparently not) and he believes he can set tricksters to catch tricksters. Accompanied by an Italian torturer, Mercurio Cavaldi (Peter Stormare), the German brothers are thus forced to work for the French and discover who has been stealing little girls from the little forest village of Marbaden. The only issue here is -- the situation is a truly supernatural one. An evil queen who locked herself in a tower several hundred years ago to escape a plague, set a spell in motion to regain her youth. It requires kidnapping young girls and putting them into an enchanted sleep (wearing glass slippers, no less). Will Grimm is quickly out of his depth but Jacob recognizes the elements from an old story and manages to almost save the day.
Monica Bellucci was born to play an evil beautiful queen, and Lena Headey excels in her performance as Angelica, the strong female presence and love interest of both the Grimms. There are some truly creepy scenes in this movie. While shying away from the blood and guts, the PG-13 rating here should be taken literally. There's really some nightmare inducing stuff here that parents may want to be cautious of before letting younger viewers see it. Audio setup for this DVD includes English and French language, with captions in English and Spanish. The Special Features include an optional movie commentary by Director Terry Gilliam, as well as a number of deleted scenes with optional commentary. Two featurettes explore the behind-the-scenes of filming, storywriting and special effects, with comments from the cast and production staff. Gilliam hints at how intense the original stories, requiring even the Grimms themselves to tone things down a bit when they recorded them. And the problems with the wolf were, apparently, a thorn in the crew's side almost down to the eleventh hour, as Gilliam and Digital Effects Supervisor John Paul Docherty discuss in a featurette devoted solely to the CGI work done on the film. More attention to adventure and less distraction from the backstory would have made "The Brothers Grimm" a rip-roaring piece of fun. What this movie needs is a directors cut version -- one that takes out the unnecessary rather than includes even more deleted scenes. Previews on this disc include DVD releases for "Flightplan", "Underclassman", and "Dark Water".
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