The slow march of style's final triumph over substance in the world of movies has been stomping along for a while now. If Terry Gilliam's \The Brothers Grimm"" doesn't quite allow victory to be won, it is still one of the most shockingly superficial style bonanzas in this design-fixated era of Hollywood filmmaking.
It is a rare film-one in which the absence of plot and character development is painfully evident, but one that cannot even exist in the trivial framework the director establishes. However, not much more could have been done in those departments.
The result is a film that dulls the mind into not expecting anything more than the boring drivel tossed at it, which is usually a bunch of elaborate sets with an occasional human figure plastered here or there.
Matt Damon and Heath Ledger play Will and Jake Grimm before their fairy-tale-telling days, gallivanting across Europe conning townspeople by ""defeating"" curses, witches and demons. The film revolves around their being called upon to vanquish what turns out to be a real curse. There is no reason why this particular curse should be the real thing; nothing makes it seem more genuine or innately logical than all the others; it just happens to be real, and that's that.
The setting of the cursed area is impressive, but the actors aren't assigned to do much more than place themselves between it and the camera. Damon and Ledger look as if they are begging to be allowed to do more.
If there's one revelation in ""The Brothers Grimm"" it is Ledger, who, despite being given very little to work with, generates a good deal of like-ability and subtle humor. He has segued quite nicely-and rather unexpectedly-from bland teenage heartthrob into an actor of fine range and ability.
Like many of Gilliam's other films, ""The Brothers Grimm"" features a dark stylistic motif. His vision of a Gothic, old Europe is fun to look at, and it certainly seems like it should be appropriate for a film about the Grimm Brothers, whose gruesome bedtime stories have been interesting psychologists and horrifying children for centuries. What ""Grimm"" does not have is a plot to match. There is a sprinkling of inspired perverseness, such as a French torture device in which someone's head is covered in snails and then lowered into a boiling pot.
However, for the most part, the sensibilities of this film are simply not demented enough for it to feel worthy of the morbidity Gilliam tries to instill. In reality, it is not worthy of an audience's interest at all. The plot is tedious and absurdly one-dimensional; the love interest, played perfunctorily by Lena Headley, adds nothing but awkwardness and, supporting characters, like Peter Stormare's inexplicably Russian-accented Italian bureaucrat, are nearly insufferable.
""The Brothers Grimm"" had been sitting on Miramax's shelf since November, and it is not hard to see why. Apparently, it was released as part of Miramax's final push before being consolidated further into Disney and loses super-producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein.
It is clear that Terry Gilliam has an artistic and creative mind, and he has made some good movies in the past. However, this film would make one think he is not qualified to do anything more than art direction.
