Western Courier

Issue date: 9/16/05 Section: The Edge

The Brothers Grimm is a movie about the authors who wrote every child's favorite fairy tale. Set in Germany during the French occupation in the early 1800s, the two characters Jake (Heath Ledger) and Will Grimm (Matt Damon) are actually traveling con artists that go from town to town fooling the townspeople into a false sense of security by protecting them from enchanted creatures and the like.

One day all their tomfoolery catches up to them. The French army captures them and demands that they investigate multiple kidnappings of little girls that have been happening in a small town.

Upon investigating the disappearances, the Grimm brothers realize that they have stumbled upon a real-life fairy tale. It turns out that an immortal evil queen who sealed herself in a tower 500 years prior to avoid the plague that was infecting her villagers, is having the small girls kidnapped to return her body to its younger, healthier form. The director, Terry Gilliam, even manages to work in a few Grimm fables, like "The Frog King," "Cinderella," "The Gingerbread Man," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Hansel and Grethel" and "Sleeping Beauty."

All of these elements put together make this movie not worth seeing. One of the first problems with this movie is the fact that there are German, French and even Italian people in this movie, the French have French accents, the Italian have Italian accents and the Germans have English accents. The second problem is the constant mish-mashing and splicing of all of the Grimm's fairy tales crammed into this film, not every single one they wrote had to be in it. Thirdly the plot was all over the place, if this movie was any more unorganized it might as well been written by a team of primates.

Finally when hearing that a movie is being made about the novelists of many childhood fairy tales, one would expect it to be a child friendly movie, this movie would terrify the most jaded eight-year-old. Avoid this movie at all costs.

- Eileen Baldeshwiler

Edge staff

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