The Brothers Grimm
Miramax Films | Release Date: August 26, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
18
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Gilliam has rarely been more inventive, energetic, or just plain funny. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
This brisk, free-falling fantasy about the famous collators of German fairy tales, played here as a kind of comedy act by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, is Terry Gilliam's most entertaining work since the glory days of "Time Bandits," "Brazil," "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," and "The Fisher King." Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Just as fabulously cartoon-Gothic as "Sleepy Hollow." Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJim Fusilli
A wildly wondrous reinvention of the story of the chroniclers of dark, occasionally horrific, child-pleasing fairy tales.
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's a barrage of visual stimulation so excessive that it's hard to sort it all out. But it's often funny, its texture can be breathtaking and its pleasures likely will grow with repeated viewings. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
The result is minor Gilliam: still more engaging than most moviemaking, but nonetheless a letdown after such a long wait. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
If you're a Gilliam junkie, as I am, you go with it, even when the script by Ehren Kruger (The Skeleton Key) loses its shaky hold on coherence. Read full review
75
PremiereGlenn Kenny
In the end it's still Gilliam Lite, but Gilliam Lite is better than no Gilliam at all. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Damon, an underrated comic actor, is particularly good as an ultra-rationalist who'll scream like a girl and run from anything he can't immediately explain. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The result is a bit of a mess: sometimes delightful, sometimes tedious, always creative. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
An absurd mess that's more entertaining than it has any right to be. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Sorry, but the real Grimms did a whole lot more with a great deal less. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
If The Brothers Grimm flies apart like a badly designed airplane (and it does), it still has more going for it than most of the movie fare this summer. Read full review
60
EmpireDan Jolin
Gilliam at his best and his worst. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Hugely ambitious but often failing to live up to those ambitions, Terry Gilliam's long-awaited The Brothers Grimm emerges as a folkloric adventure that intermittently entertains. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Strenous yet flat, The Brothers Grimm is a let's-see-what-sticks spectacle that, coming from Terry Gilliam, is more grim than "Grimm." Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Unfortunately, although Gilliam has always had a taste for the outre, he has allowed it to get out of hand here and swallow the picture whole. There's an excessiveness, an unwelcome too-muchness to "Grimm's" creepy moments. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
Brothers never catches fire the way Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" did. And you almost feel during subpar special effects that sweaty stagehands are pushing the trees around. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Seriously lost in the woods. This aimless epic about a pair of charlatan brothers sinks under the weight of a problematic script, questionable star casting, hamfisted editing -- and penny-pinching by Gilliam’s latest patrons, the Brothers Weinstein. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Neither Grimm comes across as especially interesting to watch, and neither does anything in the movie offer much to get excited about. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The Brothers Grimm gives you plenty to look at, but it's not much to see. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Although The Brothers Grimm is partly an inventive fantasy, it's also a cluttered, jangly action picture, and there's too much noise and commotion for Gilliam's subtler ideas to really resonate. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
Like a lot of Gilliam's movies it's too overloaded--antic, indulgent, overdesigned--to get off the ground for more than a minute or two at a stretch. Read full review
50
VarietyRobert Koehler
The tilt here toward a hyperactive, buddy-movie action-adventure with loud comic archetypes is a poor fit for a film that relies on fairy tale icons and themes. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
The Brothers Grimm reeks of compromise, of a brilliant fantasist losing his footing and nerve and getting hopelessly gummed up in the cruel machinery of big-budget blockbuster filmmaking. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Although Gilliam's bright color palette and weird camera angles lift the film, it has an overall sense of darkness, as if shot among people who have yet to see the Age of Enlightenment. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Never calms down for a second. It's the visual equivalent of the "Sabre Dance," and its only oxygen comes from the actors, who are quite good. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A work of limitless invention, but it is invention without pattern, chasing itself around the screen without finding a plot. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Kitted out in period garb and dubious British accents, the actors throw themselves into this flimsy contrivance with energy, but are badly served by a director focused on flipping switches and twirling knobs. Despite a few early sparks of promise The Brothers Grimm sputters and coughs along like an unoiled machine, grinding gears and nerves in equal measure. Read full review
40
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
On the whole, The Brothers Grimm is a mess; a formerly daring director’s attempt to cash in on big studio backing even after the rug has been pulled out from under him. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
This is one of the most visually off-putting films ever made by a director who supposedly makes beautiful pictures. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The film seems almost intentionally bad in most ways, as if Gilliam were expressing a suicide wish for his directing career. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
It's easily the ugliest film Gilliam's ever made, a movie shot with a lens someone forgot to wipe. It's also his loudest: Every scene is amped up to 11, and every line of dialogue is delivered as though it's a cry for help from the bottom of the well. Read full review
30
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Not terrible so much as terminally silly. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's the cinematic equivalent of an all-dessert meal: After the initial jolt, the lack of any real nourishment is apparent, and it becomes a struggle to stay awake. Read full review
20
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Gilliam does two things well: mud and trees. Read full review
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