The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Average Rating: 5.2/10
Reviews Counted: 178
Fresh: 67 | Rotten: 111
The Brothers Grimm is full of beautiful imagery, but the story is labored and less than enchanting.
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 36
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 25
The Brothers Grimm is full of beautiful imagery, but the story is labored and less than enchanting.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 348,654
My Rating
Movie Info
Two men who have made a career out of spinning remarkable stories find themselves bringing them to life in this inventive fantasy inspired by the creators of some of the world's best-loved fairy tales. Will Grimm (Matt Damon) and his brother Jake Grimm (Heath Ledger) earn their living by traveling from village to village and vanquishing strange supernatural beasts that have been menacing the populace. Or at least that's what their clients think has been happening; as it happens, Will and Jake
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Cast
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Matt Damon
Will Grimm -
Heath Ledger
Jake Grimm -
Jonathan Pryce
Delatombe -
Lena Headey
Angelika -
Peter Stormare
Cavaldi -
Monica Bellucci
The Evil Queen -
Roger Ashton-Griffiths
Mayor -
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Jan Unger
Gregor -
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All Critics (187) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (74) | Rotten (116) | DVD (34)
The Brothers Grimm has enough haunting, fairy-tale imagery for 10 movies, but no emotional kick to drive those images home.
Top CriticIt's kind of cold and it's kind of a mess, but I thought it was a glorious mess and it looks so great and it is so interesting and there is so much going on that I have to recommend it on a very mild level.
Jammed with stuff and all but empty of drama.
The best thing to be said about this expensive but drab wannabe mirthmaker is that it has some of its director's quirky touches.
The result is something that might best be called Monty Python and the Holy Mess.
A flawed but brilliantly imaginative mix of darkness and humor reminiscent of Hammer period chillers like Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter by way of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
At times this fanciful romp lurches uneasily between violence, slapstick comedy and sublime escapism - in other words, it's pure Gilliam.
Wide-eyed, messy, lustrous, rich with enchantment, both giddy and perverse
The only redeeming feature is the hope that [director Terry Gilliam's] salary from The Brothers Grimm,/i> will help him set up a good, old-fashioned Gilliam film, in the tradition of his excellent early work.
Don't expect a fairy tale -- this story is for teens and adults.
The movie feels thoroughly like a project Gilliam did halfheartedly, just to stay in the game.
A disjointed, ear-splitting, visually-jarring, mirthless exercise in pandemonium that director Terry Gilliam tries to pass off as family entertainment.
everyone involved in the production appears to have become lost in the dark woods, hoping somehow to find their way out with an incoherent trail of compromises.
As magical as classic fairy tales may seem to be, a winking Gilliam is out to prove here that to a profoundly superstitious, stressed out early 19th century world, those legends were as frighteningly real as any documentary or even reality show today.
As magical as classic fairy tales may seem to be, a winking Gilliam is out to prove here that to a profoundly superstitious, stressed out early 19th century world, those legends were as frighteningly real as any documentary or even reality show today.
It's hard to imagine whom the filmmakers had in mind for this lavish production.
This odd stew of fairy tale allusions and Scooby-Doo mystery-solving is rescued by a plot that's just good enough and acting and special effects that, for all the movie's flaws, are dazzling enough to make it worth watching.
Audience Reviews for The Brothers Grimm
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Delatombe: Bango!
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- Jake Grimm: It's this way Will!
- Will Grimm: No, no, it's not, it's not. It's that way! Grandmother Toad told me!
- Jake Grimm: What?
- Will Grimm: Trust the toad!
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The Brothers Grimm is Terry Gilliam's first film that lacks a surealist personality and a interestingly mind boggling concept. Besides the marvelous visuals and the capable cast, this is a Terry Gilliam move that doesn't feel at all like a Terry Gilliam movie. It feels rather studio structured and is terrified to go to the places Gilliam is screaming for it to go to. He's one of the few artistic film makers working today who understands visuals and depth and if you give him his space he can make something very remarkable. If your going to make a fantasy film with a worthy director you have to allow it to go somewhere, this doesn't. But on a positive note I think the industrialisation of it forgot to enclose Gilliam's signature humour and brilliant changes of tone. There's some good humour in the film, I laughed a few times, I think it will please primarily the popcorn crowd. But if your someone like me, a huge Terry Gilliam fan who admires his ambitions for artsy cinema, this is best avoided.