Delayed Reaction: The Brothers Grimm

The Pitch: Terry Gilliam + Harvey Weinstein + Matt Damon & Heath Ledger. What could go wrong?

The Grimm brothers are con men, acting as supernatural exterminators until one day, they run into a job that really is supernatural.

It was worth a try.

The intellectual property "holy grail" is taking something that's public domain and turning it into a franchise. Nearly every studio has tried it and most have failed. Just think of how many Robin Hood or King Arthur movies there have been over the years. It's really hard to pull off though. That's why Disney will pay billions of dollars to buy Star Wars or Amazon will pay $100 million just for the rights to make a Lord of the Rings show. Still, all you need is one producer who thinks he or she knows better, and $80 million later, there's The Brothers Grimm.

Just about everything about this movie's development was wrong-headed. The myth of Terry Gilliam as a director precedes him. He specializes in cult hits. Monty Python and the Holy Grail made its money on video. Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas all made less that $11 million. Even his hits - 12 Monkeys, The Fisher King, Time Bandits - had been modest. He's only ever had 1 top 30 movie for the year (Time Bandits, all the way back in 1981). Studios like the idea of a Terry Gilliam movie, then pull back as soon as they see what he's doing. That's exactly what happened with The Brothers Grimm. For some reason, Dimension (under Miramax, i.e. Harvey Weinstein) took this movie on as the most expensive film they'd ever made. That was a terrible idea. Harvey Weinstein was known for imposing himself on movies. In no world would two men as stubborn and demanding as Gilliam and Weinstein work well together. The movie of course kept getting delayed. Gilliam wanted a lot more money for it. Weinstein want for final cut power. It was really a whole mess.

Worst of all, because of all the delays, both The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Van Helsing soured the "alternate takes of public domain fantasy stories" market. By the time The Brothers Grimm finally showed up, no one was interested and the narrative of its failure had already been written.

This movie is like sand through my fingers trying to remember anything about it. I even have the Wikipedia page pulled up and I'm forgetting parts of it a paragraph at a time.

Heath Ledger was my favorite actor before his death, so I'm running out of movies of his that I haven't seen. Sadly, this is a reminder that there is a reason why I haven't seen the remaining movies already. I like the idea of Ledger and Matt Damon as costars in an adventure movie. Apparently, they swapped roles after they were cast for the movie. I can't say if that was a good decision or not. What I can say is that if the actors in a movie can just switch roles, then that probably doesn't speak well about how well written the characters are. The whole point of casting is that you find the right person for a specific role, right?

The movie has some base level thrills. Gilliam brings some great visuals. Ledger and Damon have enough screen presence to make scenes work. The movie is more forgettable than bad.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend