The Brothers Grimm

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about The Brothers Grimm's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of The Brothers Grimm completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 21 November 2005.

Overall comments and recommendations

The Brothers Grimm is a adventure fantasy film that contains horror-like images, supernatural occurrences and violence, which at times is brutal and gruesome. It may be enjoyed by older adolescents and adults who are looking for something a little off beat, but is sometimes difficult to follow, with poor acting and special effects.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie The Brothers Grimm contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

The Brothers Grimm is set in early 19th century French-occupied Germany and tells the tale of Will and Jake Grimm (Matt Damon and Heath ledger), a pair of ghost-busting charlatans, who for an exorbitant fee will rid superstitious villagers of troublesome witches and demons. The brothers are revealed as charlatans, and thrown in jail by Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) a French General, and his Italian adjutant Cavaldi (Peter Stormare). Delatombe releases the brothers to investigate the strange disappearance of young girls from a village near the forest of Marbaden, and strikes a bargain that if they uncover those responsible for the disappearances, they will be pardoned for their previous crimes.

Cavaldi and the Brothers Grimm travel to Marbaden and enlist the help of a local woodswoman Angelika (Lena Headey) to lead the brothers and Cavaldi into the forest where the girls have disappeared. As they travel through the forest, the brothers become convinced that the forest is enchanted and flee back to the village. There they discover that a wicked queen who is hundreds of years old lives in the tower in the enchanted forest, and has been abducting the girls for an act of dark magic that will make her young again. With time running out and a disbelieving Delatombe taking matters into his own hands, Will and Jake must try to destroy the wicked queen.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

The Brothers Grimm contains frequent violence, at times, presented in a dark, humorous, or tongue in cheek manner, and at other times depicted in a more grim, terrifying and brutal manner. Violence includes:

• physical fighting
  
• sword and gun fights
  
• Will and Jake are threatened with being tortured, by being placed in a type of giant blender designed to mince its victims. A kitten is accidentally caught in the blender blades and instantly minced, with some of the minced kitten splattering on the General’s face. The General wipes the remains off his face and licks his fingertips
  
• Will and Jake, who are in their hotel room, are tied by their feet to their horses which are outside. The horses backs are set on fire, forcing them to take off at great speed with Will and Jake dragged about the hotel in a scene reminiscent of a Bugs Bunny cartoon
  
• one of the village girls is abducted and consumed by a type of man-sized mud monster, later revealed as a gingerbread-like character
  
• a soldier is impaled by a tree root, which exits via the soldier’s mouth
  
• the soldier’s torso, which has been ripped apart, is flung on the ground in front of Will and Jake
  
• the General empties a basket containing the severed heads of two friends of Will and Jake’s
  
• the General shoots Cavaldi in the chest without any sign of remorse
  
• Will and Jake later impale the General with a spear.
  
• a young girl is chased by what sounds like a giant wolf growling and crashing through the forest. The face of the terrified girl is shown as she attempts to run away.
  
• a silhouetted image of a horse swallowing a girl whole
  
• Jake and Will, while under the influence of the wicked queen, attempt to stab each other with swords. Eventually Jake manages to stab and kill Will
  
• Cavaldi rough handles Angelika, pinning her by the throat to a barn door with a wooden garden fork
  

The film rarely presents any of the real life consequences resulting from the use of violence; in fact, on a number of occasions people are killed only to come back to life at the end of the film.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above mentioned violent scenes, there are some scary scenes in this movie that could disturb children under the age of eight years, including the following:

• a witch flies through the air with an inhuman corpse-like face (this could be very traumatic for younger children)
  
• thousands of creepy crawly bugs terrifying a young girl
  
• a shadowy boogie-like man terrifying the same girl
  
• Angelika skinning and bleeding a dead rabbit
  
• a man feeds spiders to a horse, and that same horse vomits up a spider-like web onto a young girl, then swallowing the girl whole. Later, images of the girl lying in the horse’s stomach are shown.
  
• creepy trees that can lift up their roots and move about to attack people and eat them
  
• horror-like images of a wolf standing on its hind legs and transforming into a man
  
• a man-sized mud monster that consumes a young girl before vanishing down a well
  
• the wicked queen with a mummified faced; her fingernails are twisted and six-inches long

The cruelty to animals, including the kitten being minced and the horses being set on fire could concern young children.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Many of the above mentioned scenes could also scare and / or disturb children between the ages of eight and thirteen years.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Some children over the age of thirteen may be able to cope with the scary visual images, particularly as many horror scenes are presented in a clearly unrealistic manner. However, many young adolescents could still be affected by some of the more creepy images, such as the horse eating the child, or images of the witch, or the wicked queen, the gruesome violence and the horror themes.

Sexual references

The film contains a couple of sexual references, including:

• Will, while ushering two women upstairs to his bedroom states that he is going for a little “chit chat” upstairs, with the inference being sexual
  
• Will licks the back of a female toad in the hope that this will entice the toad to point Will in the right direction. However, the toad immediately turns over onto her back, exposing her underneath and inferring sexual availability.

Nudity and sexual activity

The film contains no nudity or explicit sexual activity. There are, however:

• sensual images of the wicked queen who wears a revealingly low cut dress
  
• one instance of implied sexual activity. After Will has taken the two tavern girls up to his room; he is shown lying in bed asleep with an arm around each of the women; however, all three are fully clothed.

Use of substances

There is some use of alcohol, including:

• people drinking beer and wine in a tavern-like setting.
  
• images of children drinking what appeared to be alcohol from ale mugs
  
• in one scene, Will appears to be somewhat intoxicated, becoming very vocal and friendly towards people; at another time, he becomes verbally abusive

Coarse language

The film contains infrequent use of coarse language and some mild putdowns, including:

• you’re an idiot
  
• Jesus Christ
  
• bastard
  
• bullshit
  
• shit
  
• piss bucket

The movie's message

The Brothers Grimm is principally a tongue in cheek, nonsense film that does not really contain any meaningful take home message. However, Will and Jake did make a number of personal sacrifices allowing them to triumph over the wicked evil queen.

Parents may wish to encourage the manner in which the Brothers Grimm persevered against the odds, and the manner in which they changed from con men interested only in lining their own pockets to altruistic thinkers who put the welfare of other before their own. Parents may wish to discuss the film’s representation of violence in a satirical manner and how this representation compares to reality.