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The Brothers Grimm


by Matt Damon, Heath Ledger
Starring Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Mackenzie Crook, Matt Damon, Dana Dohnalova, Petra Dohnalova
Miramax

List Price: $14.99
Price: $9.99
You Save: $5.00 (33%)
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Sales Rank: 3604
Release Date: December 20, 2005
Rated:  
Running Time: 118 minutes
Theatrical Release: August 26, 2005
Studio: Miramax


FORMATS

  • Closed-captioned
  • Color
  • DVD-Video
  • Widescreen
  • NTSC


EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Description
Matt Damon (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, OCEAN'S TWELVE) and Heath Ledger (THE PATRIOT, A KNIGHT'S TALE) team up to bring you one of the year's most fantastic adventures in this magical tale based on the lives of the legendary storytellers. Will and Jake Grimm (Damon and Ledger) dazzle small towns with their imaginative folklore and elaborate illusions, but when the brothers journey into a real enchanted forest they encounter many of the fantastic characters and thrilling situations found in their beloved fairy tales! From the award-winning director of 12 MONKEYS, BRAZIL and MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, this fabulous motion picture is sure to leave you living happily ever after!

Amazon.com
Fairy tales come vividly to life in The Brothers Grimm, a long-delayed fantasy/horror comedy that greatly benefits from the ingenuity of director Terry Gilliam. In lesser hands, the ambitious screenplay by prolific horror specialist Ehren Kruger (who wrote the American versions of The Ring and The Ring 2) might have turned into an erratic monster mash like Van Helsing. But Gilliam's maverick sensibility makes the film more closely comparable to Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves, with the added benefit of impressive CGI effects and lavish (though cost-efficient) production design, making the most of a challenging $75 million budget. Kruger's clever conceit is to turn "folklore collectors" Wilhem and Jacob Grimm (Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, respectively) into 19th-century con artists who perform bogus exorcisms of "evil enchantments" while traveling from village to village in French-occupied Germany. The two soon find themselves ensnared in a genuinely supernatural crisis involving the curse of the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci) and such fantastical marvels as the Big Bad Wolf, the Gingerbread Man, and a host of other truly enchanted (and not altogether friendly) flora and fauna. It's kind of a mess, switching from over-the-top humor (mostly from Peter Stormare as a manic villain) to serious fantasy involving the beautiful Angelika (Lena Headey), who proves to be the Grimm Brothers' most reliable ally. And like many of Gilliam's films, Grimm suffered from production delays (during which Gilliam filmed Tideland), distributor fallout, and several changes in its theatrical release date, but none of these issues prevent the film from being a welcomed addition to Gilliam's remarkable list of credits. --Jeff Shannon


CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 263 reviews)

Visually beautiful, otherwise terrible  
Terry Gilliam just can't get past the visual, much like Tim Burton. Sometimes the visuals don't thwart the rest of the film, sometimes they do.

In Brothers Grimm, the visuals overwhelm a film that would have very little going for it anyway. Terrible dialogue, confused plot, poor acting (by excellent actors) -- all under really poor direction.

Why are so many characters -- Heath Ledger, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Stormare, among others -- given pointless, thick, accents which, when coupled with painfully confused dialogue, make them all but incomprehensible? Why in the remote village setting, are so many different accents piled on top of one another? Just an example of revoltingly bad scripting.

To his credit, Gilliam manages to hold the film together through to its conclusion, but that's about all. It amounts to getting most of the passengers off the ship before it sinks.
November 14, 2008

Good Old Fun and Suspense too.  
Ok folks this type of story is suppose to be a tad creepy. It's the Brothers Grimm for petes sake. And no it's not the most fantastic acting or story telling but it certainly does it's job well enough. And in the end....well doesn't everyone always live happily ever after...or do they? My husband and I enjoyed it. And not a fairy tale sugar plum story I think the effects and story twists are just about right for what it was...a story....about the Brothers Grimm....all made up of course....with a touch of yester year days of ole. Loosen up and enjoy with bowl of popcorn ...... have a creepy time of it this Halloween.
October 06, 2008

Dissapointment  
Ima big fan of Damn and Ledger but this movie was well below them. Ledger was good in it but the story was just awful. Bad movie.
September 12, 2008

Good film, but not Gilliam's best  
The Brother's Grimm ala Terry Gilliam. Im giving this 5 stars not because its Gilliam's best, but because I really enjoyed Ledger's and Belucci's performances. Gilliam is a real artist in his films, he likes to paint a colorful yet disturbing palette. Munchausen does the same, however, it was not as widely received as this one, which is why I think Grimm gets so much criticism. Some people either "get" Gilliam or they dont. Personally Damon's performance was lackluster, however, overall the story is a pastiche of old faerie tale legends, condensed into a hollywood-esque blockbuster movie. Had Gilliam gone more arthause and less hollywood, I suspect this film would have fared better.

September 05, 2008

Thx Amazon.com  
Amazon.com thx for the delivery of this movie even on saturday without any charges. Delivery was delayed due to weather condition from its origin and I'am not expecting this movie until the following week but you made a commitment of next day delivery and kept the promise. Instead of 5 stars, you deserve 10 stars. Thanx Again. Dennis M.
August 10, 2008


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