And you thought they were just preservationists...
The Brothers Grimm (2005) is a fantasy-comedy film by
Terry Gilliam, starring
Matt Damon and
Heath Ledger as Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, a pair of con artists who claim to be able to exorcise hostile spirits. In addition, they write fanciful tales of their exploits, which viewers may recognize as early drafts of familiar Grimm fairy tales.
A wrench is thrown in their familiar plans when, passing through a small town in French-occupied Germany, they are charged with solving a mystery there. While the townsfolk believe supernatural forces are at work, their employer believes the disappearances to be the work of con artists like the Grimms themselves. What the brothers find is far darker than any con they have ever pulled off, and unraveling the curse will require true bravery rather than their usual theatrics.
Also stars
Monica Bellucci and Jonathan Pryce. Has practically nothing to do with the
real Brothers Grimm. (Or Does It?)
The Brothers Grimm provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Angelika.
- Adorkable: Heath Ledger's portrayal of Jakob.
- Agent Mulder: Jakob.
- Agent Scully: Will.
- And I Must Scream: On one side of the coin, there's the results of the face stealing, namely children with blanks for faces. On the other, it appears that the Sorceress will be trapped in the shards of her broken mirror until she gets herself out (unlikely) or someone gets her out (really unlikely). Oh, and she's immortal, so even dying of old age isn't an option.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The brothers find genuine inspirations for their fanciful tales during the events of the movie.
- The Blank: The Gingerbread Man sequence.
- Boomerang Comeback: Jakob throws the magic axe at the general's aide-de-camp and miss... only to have him killed by the return.
- Bring My Brown Pants:
Brunst: (after seeing Sasha get eaten by a mud creature) I... I do believe I've soiled myself.
Hidlick: Oh, good... I thought it was me.
- Cassandra Truth: When the brothers find genuine monsters in the woods, the French General doesn't believe them anymore.
- Chekhov's Gun: The mirror armor that the Grimms wear.
- Don't Go In The Woods
- Evil Tower of Ominousness: It's kind of required here. So they put one in the middle of a spooky forest. Jakob must get in to rescue his lady love. Yay.
- Face Stealer: The Gingerbread Man.
- Fairest of Them All: Aaaand, cue the evil sorceress.
- Fake Nationality: The German lead characters are played by an American and an Australian, the (presumably) German Queen is played by an Italian, the Italian Torture Technician is played by a Swede, and the French general is played by an Englishman.
- Grimmification: Well, yeah...
- Happily Ever After: Exact words used in the closing text... but since the Mirror Queen turns out to still be alive in those shards, it then admits, "... well, maybe not."
- Hellish Horse: The spiderweb horse.
- Horror Struck
- Just a Stupid Accent: Cavaldi and General Delatombe. They are Italian and French respectively, in case you didn't know.
- Kick the Dog: or the cat, in this case
- Killed Mid-Sentence: When the Woodsman throws the Queen's Magic Mirror out of the window, she screams "Who's the fairest of them — !"
- The Lost Woods: Every fairy tale has to have a big spooky forest. It's in the contract.
- Monster Protection Racket: The brothers, at first, using legerdemain and stage tricks to simulate monster attacks. Later on, they use those same tricks to fight real supernatural menaces.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: The Woodsman, type 1.
- Papa Wolf: It happens too late to save him but soon after the spell on the Woodsman breaks:
- Pocket Protector: The flashy, mirror armor that the Grimms wear as part of their con saves Cavaldi's life.
- Polyamory: Angelika, ever the pragmatist, decides there are more important things to do than to choose a brother for her Love Interest. The story never advocates one over the other, and at the end of the film she goes off with both of them.
- Precision-Guided Boomerang: The magic axe.
- Primal Fear: The scene with the spiderweb horse.
- Public Domain Character: Lots of them, referred to in oblique ways.
- Rage Against the Reflection: Played with. The Vain Sorceress cast a spell of eternal life on herself, not realizing that it would not keep her young and beautiful forever. Fortunately for her, she has a magic mirror that shows her young and beautiful self, and can use her magic to make a man look only at the reflection. She almost seduces Jakob this way, but Will tosses a rock up from below (trying to signal to his brother) and cracks the mirror, breaking the spell. The Queen is defeated in the climax by shattering the mirror completely, which shatters her as well.
- Ravens and Crows: The Mirror Queen's minions.
- Redemption Equals Death: The Woodsman.
- Resignations Not Accepted:
Cavaldi: Generale, I wish to resign my...
Delatombe: (shoots him) Resignation accepted.
- Steampunk
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Used to conceal the daughters of a local village from being kidnapped by an evil sorceress. It doesn't help.
- That Poor Cat: Literally. It gets ripped to shreds when Cavaldi kicks it into a shredder out of bad nerves.
- Torture Technician: The Italian "torture artist", before his Heel Face Turn.
- Troperiffic: Especially for Fairy Tale tropes.
- True Love's Kiss: Jakob is happy to break the enchanted sleep by giving one of these to Angelika, the woman he's been pining for the entire movie. His brother Will, meanwhile...
Will Grimm: (Jakob goes into kiss him to wake him up — but he wakes up by himself) Not. You.
- Vain Sorceress: The Mirror Queen.
- The Vamp: The Mirror Queen again.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Woodsman. Into a wolf, of course.
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