Review: The Brothers Grimm - Terry Gilliam (2005)

About three days ago I watched this movie and since then there have been some moments in which an image of The Brothers Grimm came popping up in my head. I thought: why not write a review on this movie then! So here you go...

The movie was directed by Terry Gilliam, one of the guys from Monty Python and that you can definitely see (I’ll discuss that a little later).

The lead characters are portrayed by Heath Ledger and Matt Damon, both of them being slightly unrecognisable. Other big names are: 

-Peter Stormare (Chocolat: the guy who beats his wife), 

-Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean: Keira Nightley’s dad), 

-Monica Belucci (Passion of the Christ: Maria Magdalena) and 

-Mackenzie Crook (again Pirates of the Caribbean: that pirate whose eye keeps popping out).

The story revolves around two brothers, Will and Jake Grimm: yes those guys who wrote all those fairytales quite some time ago. They’re conning people for money by recreating local legends like haunted houses and witches, and supposedly defeating them, for which they get paid! This all takes place in Germany during the reign of Napoleon. At a certain point a French high officer orders Will and Jake to go to a particular town and do what they always do (and threatens to kill them if they don’t!). All the girls in this town are disappearing which the villagers blame on the legend of a queen that had been locked up in a tower. Meanwhile, in the town one of the women helps them, and you can guess what comes next! I’m not gonna say more, ‘cause I don’t wanna give anything away.

But what is my opinion? Well, I think it a brilliant movie to be honest. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie that captured me so intensely for the whole two hours. Especially the last hour is captivating! The atmosphere is very beautiful, especially the colour scheme. Besides that, the different Grimm fairytales we all know – like Little red cap, Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella – are intertwined with the new story very well: it’s not like they are mentioned, but you can easily recognize those you know and all this is also functional within the story. That’s a plus! The music is nice too and the costumes are great. 

I said before that it’s noticeable that the director was a part of Monty Python. Let me explain: Monty Python has always made very weird movies, like Life of Brian  and The holy grail and that sense of surprising events also features in this movies, in the action packed stuff as well as in the dialogues. You won’t get bored. Besides that, the actors are pretty good too! I like the accents of Jonathan Pryce, the French officer, and Peter Stormare, the Italian soldier. They are so over the top that they actually are very funny instead of annoying. What struck me though, was that the brothers Grimm are supposed to be German, but they talk with a British accent! This all contributes to the wonderful nuttiness of this movie.

I want to recommend all of you to see this movie! I like it a lot, but I think I already made that quite clear before. Or have you already seen it?