Hey folks, Harry here - barely. I'll just post this and say - I enjoyed BROTHERS GRIMM more than Massawyrm did and I haven't seen 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN yet, cuz I saw RED EYE instead (which I liked quite a bit). Here ya go...
Hola all. Massawyrm here, desperately trying to outrun the end of summer mediocrity train that is speeding out of H-town and into our theatres. Ask any critic and they’ll tell you that the hardest reviews to write aren’t the terrible movies, nor the great ones. Those are easy – in fact the tough part with those is getting the words to stop flowing out. The toughest movies to review are the mediocre ‘meh’ fests that just make you want to shrug out your answer rather than grasp for the words that just aren’t there. It’s almost a Herculean feat to force yourself to sit down and write about films which you simply aren’t passionate about – either way. And sadly, that’s what I’m chaining myself to the desk to do today. Neither of the films I’m reviewing are terrible or even just bad. They’re blah inducing monuments to pedestrianism and prime examples of just how to miss the mark without sucking too terribly.
The Brothers Grimm
Possibly the greatest disappointment I’ve suffered this summer, or hell even this year, was sitting through a Terry Gilliam movie that didn’t tickle my geek sensibilities one bit. I love Gilliam. Love him. He is a certifiable madman, cursed, touched, nay – blessed – with a set of eyes that cause him to view our world in a way that no one else does. His stories are always beautifully strange, drenched in irony, parody and just enough truth for us to buy into his fantastic worlds. Gilliam’s worst films are repeatedly watchable and his best are legendary films that sit atop pedestals in the geek pantheon. From his work with Monty Python on up through his failed genius that was Don Quixote, the man has never ceased to impress us with his strange and wonderful talent. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Crimson Permanent Assurance segment of The Meaning of Life. Brazil. The Fisher King. Twelve Monkeys. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. These are movies that if you’ve not yet seen, you shouldn’t be reading this. You should be watching them and kicking yourself repeatedly for not having treated yourself so much sooner. Even his lesser works are infinitely lovable. Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – all good films with Gilliam’s strange touch visible to the naked eye. This man is one of the greatest cinematic minds living and working today. So to see what happens when Hollywood pairs an absolute Genius with the most successfully consistent mediocre writer of our day – well, it’s enough to make weep.
Ehren, Ehren, Ehren. Ehren Kruger. What did I ever do to deserve having to watch two Ehren Krugen movies in one week? Those that read my Skeleton Key review http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20972 know my feelings on him. He’s the very definition of the middle of the road screenwriter. Never good, nor bad, his films always meander their way through good ideas and leave you wondering what would happen if someone with real talent had tackled the script. But Kruger had not yet worked with a certifiable genius – although he had worked with a pair of greats who, in fact, had their own shares of tragic misfires (Craven and Frankenheimer.) This was Kruger’s chance to have penned something truly legendary helmed by someone who really knew how to make something unique, and forever be able to rest on those laurels. But no. His script turns out to be so limp, so weak, so anemic that even Gilliam can’t save it.
Now I’m not going to rest the blame solely on Kruger’s shoulders. Gilliam certainly has a lot to answer for here. And it’s not enough to simply say ‘He should have known better.’ The flaws in this film are as much his responsibility as it is the source material. It almost feels like he was so desperate to direct his ‘Fairy Tale’ movie after the collapse of Don Quixote that he rushed headlong into this one, getting each shot before the inevitable Rains and Planes set in to destroy it. Stylistically it feels less like a Gilliam film and oddly enough more like one done by Sam Raimi – one specific Raimi film to be exact. Army of Darkness. Imagine if you will a let down of a sequel to Army of Darkness, complete with the same creature makeup, effects and shot structure – but without the wry tongue in cheek humor of Raimi and lacking the physical comedy of Bruce Campbell. That’s exactly what the Brothers Grimm proves to be.
What comedy is present is rarely funny and the characters seem about as developed as Kruger usually gets them. And there’s simply nothing in the first two thirds of this movie to ever get you really involved with what’s going on. You simply keep asking yourself – is this really a Terry Gilliam movie? Then a shot or two comes along to remind you, that yes, it is a Gilliam film and a profound sadness takes hold as you realize this isn’t even remotely the movie you’d hoped it would be. While certainly strange in that Gilliam fashion, complete with insane despots, bizarre characters and seemingly normal locales given an outlandish look and feel – none of it takes root and pulls you in. It actually becomes more annoying than anything else.
The idea here certainly is good, or at least much like Van Helsing, probably looked really fun on paper. The Brothers Grimm are two charlatans who go from town to town collecting folklore then executing hoaxes based upon it to scare the populace into paying them to exorcize whatever witch or demon is plaguing them. When they’re caught and about to be tried for their crimes, they’re offered the chance to get off the hook if they expose another group of charlatans plaguing another town and stealing off with the towns little girls. Only DUNDUNDUN! It’s not a hoax and the Brothers Grimm find themselves caught up in an honest to god fairy tale. Okay, neat premise. Sure it sounds like the Mystery Machine should roll up any second to solve the case, but okay, with Gilliam at the helm you could expect all sorts of eccentric twists and turns. Right? Nope. Instead we’re treated to a series of Brothers Grimm references strung together into one long festival of ‘Look! It’s Little Red Riding Hood!’ ‘Look, It’s Hansel and Gretel!’ ‘Look! It’s The Big Bad Wolf! The Witch! The Woodsman and his axe!’ and many, many more.
This movie suffers from moments so disturbingly run of the mill that it begins to feel like one of those terrible but lovable 80’s fantasy movies we all grew up with – causing me to stop and think for a minute. ‘You know, if I was 10 I’d probably love this.’ But this movie isn’t for kids. Despite the PG-13 rating, this movie is far from something most parents are going to take their kids to. It’s often bloody, gruesome and includes exploding kittens, decapitated heads and animals swallowing children whole. While certainly all these elements are the things of true fairy tales (as the Brothers Grimm really told them as opposed to the way Disney and others have chosen to retell them) it’s far too graphic and disturbing for most of the audience who might enjoy this film to even get in to see it. And even then they’ll most likely have nightmares for weeks – if they’re not crying about the kitten.
Matt Damon and Heath Ledger are fine as the brothers, but neither gives a performance that, love them or not, will change your opinion of them either way. They’re likable enough to follow along through the film, but never enough that you really want to root for them all that much. Peter Stormare, on the other hand, reaches new heights of annoyance that puckers your asshole every time he hits the screen. Now normally I love the way Stormare chews up scenery. His appearances always bring with it a beautiful sleaze that’s not easy to come by. While some complained about his role as the devil in Constantine, he proved to be one of my favorite portrayals of Lucifer to hit the screen. While not as cunning as Von Sydow, pretty and charming as Mortensen or funny as Peter Cook – Stormare gave us a portrayal of a guy so sleazy, so downright dirty and disgusting that he could only be the devil – and for me, he made Constantine worth seeing. Stormare is one of those great, fun character actors that adds a special touch to any scene he’s in. But here, he’s so repulsive, so irritating, so terribly unfunny that I was pulling my hair out with his every appearance. Only Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean, Affair of the Necklace) proves to feel at home as a true Terry Gilliam character, playing the insane, French Despot bent on proving the enchanted forest a hoax or mercilessly killing the Brothers if they can’t.
But the movie is never really terribly bad. Each annoying or misspent moment is equaled with something moderately amusing or slightly cool. It is, after all, a Gilliam film and he is good enough, even with this, arguably his worst film, to add his touches that make it pleasurable, if only for a brief moment here and there. And surprisingly, the ending is somewhat worthwhile, managing to pull itself out of the rut of boredom and into a moderately entertaining romp through the climactic end of a fairy tale. The ending narrowly pulls this film out of the waste of time category and puts it firmly into the okay column, but like most Kruger penned films, never completely makes up for all the time the audience spends bored. I can’t in any way recommend this movie. It’s the Gilliam film I wish never happened. But it did, and there ain’t a god damned thing we can do about it. Except maybe hope and pray that his next film, slated to release later this year ‘Tideland’ kicks unholy ass and redeems the lack of heart and originality he showed us here.
The 40 Year Old Virgin
It’s sad to say out of the two films I’m reviewing today, the best of them is this. The 40 Year Old Virgin. And still that’s not saying much. While I can honestly say The 40 year old Virgin is funny, it’s not laugh out loud funny. It’s chuckle worthy, the whole way through. Essentially, this is just another American Pie movie, the 40 year Old Version. Imagine, if you will, that one of the guys from American Pie never sealed the deal, and 22 years later, after years of playing video games and collecting action figures, his coworkers find out about it – setting into motion a series of misadventures to get him some. That’s the premise of one hell of a truly middling comedy romp that is been-there-done-that all the way through. There’s nothing truly original about either the premise or the comedy, most of the humor having been stolen from Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s repertoire of jokes – without any of the biting social comedy or satire that usually accompanies them. ‘Let’s see how many times we can get the old folks to swear and say “Dirty Sanchez” before it gets old’ seems to be the joke de jour – the modern equivalent of the 80’s old woman or orangutan giving Tony Danza or Clint Eastwood the finger.
This movies one saving grace is the casting of the best friends involved – Paul Rudd, Romany Malco and Seth Rogen – who take what humor they’re given and give it rock solid delivery, making the juvenile and repetitive dick jokes worth snickering at. What I love about these three is not that they come off as the type of guys I’d like to hang out with, but rather they are exactly the type of guys I hang out with. You know when you’re sitting around the X-box with your best friends, kicking the crap out of one another and talking smack all the while? You know those ludicrous dick jokes you throw back and forth – joking about hitting you some walleyed cooter or giving your buddy a “mushroom cap” for the cheap move he just exploited in the game? Those jokes your wife or girlfriend rolls her eyes at but deals with because you never talk like that ‘much’ when you’re alone with her? Those are the jokes this movie is lined with front to back. If you haven’t heard 40 different Dirty Sanchez jokes this week, this movie might be really funny to you. And if you don’t even know what a Dirty Sanchez is, I highly recommend googling it right now to fully understand what I’m talking about. You won’t be disappointed.
But you know how you and your buddies are always joking about how you should make a movie about yourselves, sharing all of your jokes with the world and just how funny it would be? There’s a reason you don’t. Because its not really all that funny after all. The living room humor that’s really funny off the cuff doesn’t prove to be fall down funny when presented in a two hour film. And that’s where The 40 Year Old Virgin fails. It’s a one joke movie, constantly riffing on ‘Man, you’ve never gotten laid? That’s funny.’ There’s nothing subtle nor remotely insightful about the humor presented. It’s all dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick. How many dicks is that? A lot. Oh yeah – and they love saying pussy. A lot.
Now I know, an AICN reviewer bitching about juvenile humor is something akin a nazi complaining about all of the bodies lying around. Once you’ve heard Harry ruminate for half an hour about what a film made his balls feel like, seeing it try to hold up as a film for two hours is a bit of a stretch. ‘You know why you’re gay?’ ‘You know why YOUR gay?’ jokes (actually a series of jokes in the film) are only fall down funny if this is your first real exposure to them. Some of them, as I said, are a bit chuckle worthy – but never does this film ever cut out with something that really makes you laugh whole-heartedly. In fact, most of it feels like they just trained the camera on these guys and let them riff for a few minutes until they said something that made the crew laugh and then just went with that.
What humor is set up in the film, the few situational bits that revolve around Steve Carell, are really the least funny segments in the film. The only reason you ever really care about him is because you’re supposed to, and well, you’ve probably known a guy like that and feel sorry for him. But that never makes it funny. There are times where they resort to ‘Hey look, it’s a pothole! He’s gonna…he did! He bit it! Face first!’ And oooooh how funny that is, folks. ‘Oh look! He’s drunk and saying “I’m gonna get me some pussy!” Really loud!’ Comedy gold.
But as these scenes are interspersed with long segments of Rudd, Malco and Rogen being GUYS, they’re a little easier to take. Again, it’s not really a bad film or a completely humorless one – it’s just a bit one note and feels too adlibbed to get amazingly excited about. More mediocre fare for what’s been a pretty mediocre month. Well, that’s it for me today. Time to unchain myself from this desk and get some fresh air. And a cigarette. I think I’ve earned it.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. I know I will.
Massawyrm
I'm thinking of quitting smoking, what should I put in my mouth instead?
