Leading Ladies: August 2005

The Brothers Grimm

Stars: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger
Director: Terry Gilliam
Rating: PG-13

The female critics seem perplexed by this fictive action-comedy-thriller-adventure mishmash about the fairy-tale-writing Grimms. They find lots to like in Monty Python alum Gilliam's flick, and a lot that just didn't work. Mostly, they seem to think the movie is just very weird, for better or for worse.

The New York Daily News's Jami Bernard says, "Brothers Grimm is weird and twisted. But the movie comes from a place more unhinged than even the darkest enchanted forest ‑- the brain of... Gilliam ‑- and the result is a bit of a mess: sometimes delightful, sometimes tedious, always creative."

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times says, "The actors throw themselves into this flimsy contrivance with energy, but are badly served by a director focused on flipping switches and twirling knobs. Despite a few early sparks of promise, [the movie] sputters and coughs along like an unoiled machine, grinding gears and nerves in equal measure."

"Although Gilliam's bright color palette and weird camera angles lift the film, it has an overall sense of darkness, as if shot among people who have yet to see the Age of Enlightenment," says the Austin Chronicle's Marjorie Baumgarten, while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Eleanor Ringel Gillespie writes, "Terry Gilliam has created a movie that's occasionally stunning but more often confused. It's not really a family film and it's not really a film for Gilliam's fans, since he's not at his best."

Salon's Stephanie Zacharek seems to sum it up: "The Brothers Grimm is a sprawling expanse of vegetation, dazzlingly alive in some places and overgrown and unruly in others. Gilliam himself seems lost in it, without the benefit of compass or bread crumbs."

Female consensus: Once upon a time, there was a very odd film about the Brothers Grimm

next : In limited release