Starring: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Monica Bellucci

5 out of 10 stars: Once upon a time there was a movie reviewer. One day the reviewer saw a documentary entitled Lost in La Mancha. It was about a brave director named Terry Gilliam who attempted to make a movie called "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." The movie stalled in production because the wicked financiers doubted the brave director and pulled back their magical coins which supported the director. "Oh, how I wish that Mr. Gilliam would be allowed another chance to let his imagination roam free," mused the little movie reviewer. Suddenly, a magical green fairy appeared! "Be careful what you wish for," said the fairy, "but your request has been granted."

Many rumors started to swirl in the kingdom. The brave director was in Prague and filming The Brothers Grimm! The movie reviewer's wish had come true! The director was working again! He was making a movie about Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, the legendary collectors of Germanic folk tales, based upon the work of a lucky writer named Ehren Kruger. The lucky writer had himself lived out a fantasy of many when he was chosen for a Nicholl's Fellowship for his script for Arlington Road many years back, propelling him into fame and fortune. "This movie shall be unassailable," thought the movie reviewer, "it can't be bad."

But more rumors began to make their way back from the filming location. A mean and cruel producer, Bob Weinstein, was trampling on the director's vision. He'd recast the lovely, but not va-va-voom Samantha Morton with the va-va-voom Lena Headley in the female protagonist role. The Weinstein was asking for script changes! He was pummeling the great director into a bloody pulp. The din was horrible!

Then, silence.

For many years no word came about the movie. "It will appear this date!," said Bob Weinstein's Dimension, the owners of the final print. "No!" said Dimension, later, "it will appear on this date." The movie sat for a long time in a deep slumber, locked away in a dark vault in Dimension's dungeon.

Then, the wicked producer began another war in another land, against a larger, even nastier foe than he, a corporate giant named Disney. As the battle waged, the bars on the cell where The Brothers Grimm was kept began to rust. The prison guards were called away to other duties and the door slowly settled off of its hinges. One day, word came back that the producer had been beaten by his foe and had moved to another land. The corporate giant opened up the prison and set those inside loose upon the world, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

The brave director made his way to the dungeon and found his film, wasted away by years of neglect and torture. He tried to prop it up; it fell over. He tried to fix it up; it resisted. He tried to mend its wounds; they were too deep. Shielding its eyes from the sun, the movie shambled out into the light.

In the brave director's tale two brothers, Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm (played by noted thespians Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, respectively) played charlatans who fool townfolk into believing they can free them of magical curses and demonic possessions. In fact, the brothers are themselves the perpetrators of the hoax themselves and they abscond with the villagers' money before the rubes catch on.

But Napoleon's army is on the march and they aren't fooled by the Grimm brothers. Led by the officious Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) and the unctuous Cavaldi (Peter Stormare) they force the brothers to confront a real magical danger. A nearby village has been paralyzed with fear because their little girls are disappearing into an enchanted forest.

Sure that the villagers are being fooled, the brothers rush in, aided by Angelika (Lena Headley) a young woman whose sister has vanished, along with her widower father. The woods are indeed cursed; the trees move and a sinister tower sits in the middle of it. Inside is the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci) a hideous woman who needs the sacrifice of twelve maidens to restore her beauty during an eclipse.

As the movie reviewer watched what the great director had wrought he was taken with an uncontrollable sadness. This was not a great film. It was a mess. It relied on some of the most clichéd elements of the fantasy genre; the spell during the eclipse, the final confrontation in the castle, the crumbling of said castle. Worse, it was as if the great director had taken a bet with someone in a gentlemen's club to see just how many elements of myth and fable he could shoehorn into one movie. Probably the most fabulous, and the most silly, was a scene wherein one of the little girls was attacked by a mud monster. The mud monster, a bizarre changeling of the girl, ingested her, whereupon she became the Gingerbread Man. The Gingerbread Man!

What was sadly lacking the most in the great director's movie was perhaps what drew him to it in the first place, the presence of magic. Though there were magical creatures (including a were-wolf) and magical settings, there was no enchantment, no trace of the dark and unexplored of the original Grimm tales. Besides a few girls in bit parts there was no innocence to counter-balance the darkness of reality.

When the movie was finally released it was in the dog days of August. The great director had moved on to make a film called Tideland. The lucky writer was penning other scripts furiously. They lived happily ever after. The green fairy appeared again to the movie reviewer, wagged its finger and said, "I warned you." And so, mindful to watch what he wished for, the movie reviewer went on his way, a bit sadder and a bit wiser.