Once Upon A Time...

there was a script for a movie about the Brothers Grimm. Unfortunately, it did not live happily ever after.

In a nutshell, that's my review of the movie - or stated more finitely, save your money. It'll be worth a rent later on - or pay per view - whichever is cheaper. (Or, by all means, if you have HBO, just wait til it's on there.)

On a scale of "PleaseOhPlease Help Me Recover The Hours I Just Wasted" to "Wow! Let's Go Again...Right Now!", I give it a good solid, "Eh. Glad I had nothing better to do."

Why I disliked this movie:
1. Were the Bros. Grimm charlatans? Is there any historical fact to that premise? I don't know - I certainly hope not, but even if there IS historical fact behind that...why do we need to know that? It kind of taints everything. Why couldn't they just have been imaginative men who wrote morality tales?

2. If you are unfamiliar with the non-Disney-fied versions of these tales, you will probably be shocked and horrified. The majority of the Grimm fairy tales are not happy go lucky, pastel cartoons with dancing fairy godmothers. For instance, in Cinderella, the step sisters actually mutillate themselves (cut off their heel and so forth) to try and fit into the slipper - and the prince only notices b/c the shoe is pooling with blood. So, the tales are morality tales and while the morality bits are pretty much left out of the movie, the more gruesome aspects that don't make it into the animated versions are represented.

3. You do need to know the fairy tales to see a lot of the hints - though they are confused and mixed up to some degree, but you can see a basis. But only if you know the story. Caveat: My brother-in-law said that, while he didn't know the stories from childhood, he did know enough from watching Shrek to keep up.

4. I looked at my watch about 9 times. The movie started at 7:00. I was good until about 7:45...and then it just got s.........l...........o............w............... It picked back up about 20 minutes before the end. But wow. And of course by that time, the popcorn was gone.

5. (Unrelated to the movie, but a damper to the whole experience) We had to sit in the non-stadium portion of the seats and well...my legs fell asleep because I'm too short to be comfy when the floor is sloping. And the chairs were uncomfortable. And the movie did not distract me well enough that I didn't notice said discomfort.

So, there you have it. Acting-wise, I thought they did a good job, mostly. But the story was just not fantastic. I will say that normally I don't like Heath Ledger...in this movie, I didn't even notice that it was him. (Which is a good thing and says a lot for his acting improvement, I think.)

Next movie I'm willing to spend that kind of cash on is going to be Serenity.