Steven Spielberg is often accused of being one of those directors who try to "awaken the child in all of us." This accusation, unfortunately, is largely true; Spielberg's sentimental idealization of childhood has at times overwhelmed his considerable skill at depicting it. "E.T." may have brought magic to our youth, but if you've never balked at that movie's emotional false notes than you probably haven't seen it lately.
Terry Gilliam, likewise, has set out to recapture childhood, but with a difference. Gilliam doesn't have Spielberg's craft, but he has a surer knack for catching a child's sensibility than almost any other director living. When, in "The Brothers Grimm," a horse swallows a young boy whole, then opens its mouth to show the boy struggling frantically in its gullet, the image is so outlandish that it's both genuinely scary and genuinely magical -- the kind of wild nightmare your friends in school once laughed at you for finding terrifying. Throughout the movie you can feel Gilliam taking giggling delight in making fairy-tale nonsense real: a witch's hair snaking down from a tower, an ambulatory goon squad of trees, a hostile gingerbread-man, a fearsomely agile wolf to chase Little Red Riding Hood. Unlike Spielberg, Gilliam doesn't seek reassurance in youthful fantasy. He stays aware of its alarming ambiguities. Think of the boy at the end of "Time Bandits," staring at two smoking holes in the grass. He's free to adventure his way through the Universe, every child's dream, but his parents have after all just exploded... so what now? "Mum? Dad?"
The images stay consistently inventive, and the performers seem to have fun dodging around them. Matt Damon is perhaps a shade too slick as Will, but he has star presence and does well enough. Heath Ledger does something rather interesting with Jacob. He has slightly mangled diction, like a teenager wearing orthodontic headgear, and quick, spastic hand movements. He makes himself into a scholar-nerd with bookish dash, and he's quite engaging. Peter Stormare and Jonathan Pryce get fun accents to play with, and a ravishing Monica Belucci hisses erotically as the villainess.
Gilliam's flaws are undeniably visible here. As ever, he lets production design distract him from the narrative, which here and there falls limp. His characteristic weakness at developing strong adult female roles shows in Lena Headey's Angelika, who's allowed to be tough and unconventionally attractive but little else. (Gilliam's most effective female characters showed up in one of his weaker films, "The Fisher King.")
"Grimm" is a minor Gilliam. It doesn't engulf you like "Brazil" and it doesn't haunt you like "12 Monkeys." But it deserves better than the lukewarm response it got from critics and audiences at release. It's lightweight, but it's as entertaining as any recent blockbuster and in general far more interesting to watch. Gilliam has suffered from his difficult reputation with the film industry, and he may be now suffering for different reasons with the rest of us -- when one of his movies actually makes it to the screen it's enough of an event that we feel cheated if it's less than transcendent. "He could do better," we say; yet even a visionary is allowed simply to have fun, yes?
Terry Gilliam, likewise, has set out to recapture childhood, but with a difference. Gilliam doesn't have Spielberg's craft, but he has a surer knack for catching a child's sensibility than almost any other director living. When, in "The Brothers Grimm," a horse swallows a young boy whole, then opens its mouth to show the boy struggling frantically in its gullet, the image is so outlandish that it's both genuinely scary and genuinely magical -- the kind of wild nightmare your friends in school once laughed at you for finding terrifying. Throughout the movie you can feel Gilliam taking giggling delight in making fairy-tale nonsense real: a witch's hair snaking down from a tower, an ambulatory goon squad of trees, a hostile gingerbread-man, a fearsomely agile wolf to chase Little Red Riding Hood. Unlike Spielberg, Gilliam doesn't seek reassurance in youthful fantasy. He stays aware of its alarming ambiguities. Think of the boy at the end of "Time Bandits," staring at two smoking holes in the grass. He's free to adventure his way through the Universe, every child's dream, but his parents have after all just exploded... so what now? "Mum? Dad?"
The images stay consistently inventive, and the performers seem to have fun dodging around them. Matt Damon is perhaps a shade too slick as Will, but he has star presence and does well enough. Heath Ledger does something rather interesting with Jacob. He has slightly mangled diction, like a teenager wearing orthodontic headgear, and quick, spastic hand movements. He makes himself into a scholar-nerd with bookish dash, and he's quite engaging. Peter Stormare and Jonathan Pryce get fun accents to play with, and a ravishing Monica Belucci hisses erotically as the villainess.
Gilliam's flaws are undeniably visible here. As ever, he lets production design distract him from the narrative, which here and there falls limp. His characteristic weakness at developing strong adult female roles shows in Lena Headey's Angelika, who's allowed to be tough and unconventionally attractive but little else. (Gilliam's most effective female characters showed up in one of his weaker films, "The Fisher King.")
"Grimm" is a minor Gilliam. It doesn't engulf you like "Brazil" and it doesn't haunt you like "12 Monkeys." But it deserves better than the lukewarm response it got from critics and audiences at release. It's lightweight, but it's as entertaining as any recent blockbuster and in general far more interesting to watch. Gilliam has suffered from his difficult reputation with the film industry, and he may be now suffering for different reasons with the rest of us -- when one of his movies actually makes it to the screen it's enough of an event that we feel cheated if it's less than transcendent. "He could do better," we say; yet even a visionary is allowed simply to have fun, yes?