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'The Brothers Grimm' is a disappointing mish-mash

It is hard not to root for director Terry Gilliam.

The former Monty Python member has made some great films (The Fisher King, Brazil), some painfully unwatchable ones (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and some that got quixotically derailed before completion (The Man Who Killed Don Quixote).

Dimension Films 'The Brothers Grimm' D The verdict: A grim, effects-driven, incoherent fictional adventure with the German fairy-tale siblings. Director: Terry Gilliam Starring: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Monica Bellucci, Jonathan Pryce, Lena Headey Release date: August 26, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for violence, frightening sequences and brief suggestive material. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Even when he fails, he does so by reaching for something visionary, refusing to consider the formulaic or derivative. Although his latest effort, The Brothers Grimm, is undeniably unlike anything you have seen before, it is also a joyless mess.

A deconstruction of the lives of the two German fairy-tale purveyors, played by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, the movie looks like unedited outtakes pieced together haphazardly.

Surely this couldn't be what Gilliam set out to make, could it?

If there is anything positive to say about this film, it is that it exemplifies the level of faith that the dismantled Miramax Films had in certain artists, however misplaced.

The screenplay by Ehren Kruger (The Skeleton Key) supposes that the odd and whimsical characters and situations that the Grimms immortalized were, in fact, drawn from life. The comic potential of that notion is quickly exhausted in the opening prologue when young Jacob Grimm concedes that he gullibly sold the family cow for a handful of "magic" beans, albeit to solve their money woes.

But on the film plunges, picking up when Jake (Ledger) and his brother Wilhelm (Damon) have grown into rascally con men, who prey on the superstitions of German peasants. They conjure up witches and goblins — with the wonders of late 18th-century special effects — then make them disappear, for the right price.

Yet wouldn't you know it, just as our carefree heroes perfect their scam, real ogres start materializing in the dark forest. It seems that little girls — yes, including one with a red riding hood — have been disappearing from their village, lost and likely captured in the woods.

The Grimms, arrested by the occupying French army led by broadly accented, painfully unfunny General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), must risk all to break the spell and rescue the tots.

That would be fine, if Gilliam did not fill his film with computerized creatures, ambulatory trees and creepy maggots, all taking priority over story coherence. Although much of the movie is visually dark and murky, the effects are impressive. A horse swallows a little girl. A werewolf transforms himself into a man and then back into wolf. But soon the images lose their cinematic wonder, turning into a hollow viewing experience.

Kruger strands his stars with single-dimension roles. Damon's Will is a skeptical rogue who believes in nothing, while Ledger's Jake is into mysticism, all-too-eager to accept a supernatural answer. That's it, and their performances reflect that cardboard depth.

Lena Headley is a looker as local huntress Angelika; Monica Bellucci overemotes as an age-obsessed queen; and Peter Stormare gets to ham it up as an Italian henchman embedded in the Napoleonic army.

No one comes off well in The Brothers Grimm, but at least Damon and Ledger will work again. Gilliam will surely bear most of the blame — deservedly so — and you have to wonder how many more expensive mistakes like this he will be allowed to make.