By Evan Ferstenfeld

Just as nearly every protagonist in a Woody Allen film inhabits a dozen of his latest neuroses and worrywarts, director and Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam has penned or brought to the screen numerous characters that also share his madly creative mind explosions. Gilliam manifests his sensibilities in everyone from a time-traveler who dines on cockroaches (12 Monkeys), to a man with more mescaline than blood cells pulsing through his psychedelic fingertips (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). The binding trait these cinematic oddballs share is a child-like mindset dying to take flight and escape the repressed reality its adult character is presently entangled in, while trying its damnedest not to stray too far off the deep end.

With The Brothers Grimm, Gilliam has sunk deep into uncharted waters without his reality lifeboat present, letting his endless talents be submerged into the fairy tales that have suddenly taken center stage instead of being his character’s salvation. Grimm is based only by name on the exploits of German writers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who at the turn of the 19th century decided to compile original ideas and cautiously whispered German fables into a rich, mythical past for its poorly-united country to communally share.

Matt Damon and Heath Ledger fictionalize the authors in a refreshingly Grimm fairy tale form, re-fashioning the college professors as a duo of grifting ghostbusters, recording for posterity each city's supernatural tales and falsely exorcising their assorted apparitions, all the while collecting piles of coin from enough dumb village people to fill a town hall with medieval Jerry Springer Show candidates. Eventually the brothers fix to defraud a town being held hostage by an enchanted forest where a child in red-hooded attire has vanished, along with several other sleeping beauties. The Grimms soon learn that these tall tales might not be as towering as they first imagined when fairy tales become reality.

While admittedly an intriguing concept, the infuriating mediocrity of the film's script strips the luster off its fun storytelling exterior. Coming off the far-fetched but feisty appeal of The Skeleton Key, writer Ehren Kruger has sadly returned to his routine low-level pandering, sloppily patching together a predictable fantasy movie that tries to mind-bafflingly double as an action buddy comedy. We may never know the exact amount of people who were clamoring for a mash-up of Rapunzel and Rush Hour, but if that number soars any higher than zero, movie-watching exams will need to be passed by the general public and licenses distributed. As a result, The Brothers Grimm elicits only cricket chirps after each painfully outdated Three Stooges showcase has run its course, followed by a round of bored gurglings for its attempts at dead-serious, heavily-edited fantasies that conjure little of the fun and magic of the hearty originals. In fact, any changes to the flawless Grimm fairy tales seem completely arbitrary, giving the film the seedy cash-in appeal of a Grimm's greatest hits CD where original tunes have been redone to maximum Marilyn Manson shock effect, abruptly alternating to cheesy Creed guitar renditions.

Terry Gilliam is the kind of director that could make a person eating a piece of cantaloupe appear alien and sinister, and in this sense, the visual gymnastics and muted-color fantastical elegance in Grimm do not disappoint. Unfortunately, the scattershot and disappointingly simplistic execution of the film's strong central ideas slowly bleed any fun to be had out of the proceedings, leaving very little that will appeal to fans of the edgier original Grimm tales or its fast-paced and fun modern kiddie counterparts.

Grade: C-
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 118 Mins