Despite Initial Charm, ‘The Brothers Grimm’ Provides Few Memorable Moments

2005_the_broithers_grimm_poster_006Uninspired, mediocre and decent; all of these words can describe Matt Damon and Heath Ledger’s fantasy/comedy, “The Brothers Grimm”. While it has a few entertaining scenes and Damon and Ledger’s on-screen chemistry is apparent, “The Brother’s Grimm doesn’t attach itself to a genre in the worst way; making viewers confused to either be scared at “The Brothers Grimm” or laugh at it.

Damon and Ledger play Will and Jacob Grimm, masters of the unknown … well sort of. The Grimm brothers have a talent for tricking the townspeople they encounter on their journeys into thinking their towns are enchanted with evil spirits and charge large sums of money to get rid of the evil doers. The first 20 minutes of the movie highlight their knack for recreating the unknown, proving the brothers are an 18th century version of Spielberg and Lucas.

It’s not until the French government finds out what their up to when they force the brothers  to catch someone whom they believe is up to the same games as they are. What unfolds is the brothers’ actualization of the unknown things in the world, with Jacob Grimm embracing the unknown to the fullest and saving the day and the life of Angelica, played by Lena Headey (The Cave, The Devils Advocate) who helps Jacob and Will find out the truth about the town and her “cursed” bloodline who are being secretly controlled by a 500-year-old queen, played by the extremely vivacious Monica Bellucci (The Matrix, Tears of the Sun).

Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean, Ronin) and Peter Stormare ( Minority Report, Constantine) provide some laughs as Delatombe and Cavaldi, turning in solid performances, but not even that can shake the confusion this picture creates.

The reason why “The Brothers Grimm” doesn’t strike gold  is simple; it doesn’t do enough to set itself apart from other films in its genre. The special effects aren’t up to par with “Harry Potter,” its production value isn’t anywhere near “Lord of the Rings” and while there are some funny scenes in the movie, there aren’t enough in the film to make the movie a great fantasy/comedy picture.

Taken at the sum of its parts, “The Brothers Grimm” is a decent movie with good on-screen chemistry between its two stars that is worth watching. When compared to the bevy of great Sci-Fi fantasy movies out on DVD right now however, “The Brothers Grimm” doesn’t add anything new to the genre and despite the few smiles it may induce, it isn’t worth the price of admission.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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