The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus.

Ok, nonsense time. Doctor Parnasus is an immortal travelling showman, with a
travelling theatre which allows punters (one at a time) to enter incredible
dreamscapes, and (little do they realise) make a choice between the
high road of goodness and enlightenment, and the low road of self-
gratification. It seems that this whole setup stems between a wager between
Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and The Devil (Tom Waits. Yes, that Tom Waits.)

However, it's getting near time to pay the piper, and the devil wants his due.
And Parnassus is an old man, and the public aren't interested in his tatty
looking theatre. Into this situation wanders Tony, a highly ambiguous charmer,
who might well be Parnassus's salvation.

And then some stuff happens that's very Terry Gilliam in a Time Bandits/ Baron
Munchausen kind of way.

Is it any good? Well, it's Gilliam, so obviously, *bits* of it are genius. But
in terms of making a film, it's a bit like throwing the pieces of a jigsaw into
a box, shaking it, and hoping. Sure, the pieces are there... Ultimately,
though, you've got to ask yourself which you'd rather have, a jigsaw you've got
to work on assembling yourself, of something great, or a perfectly formed
picture of something piss-poor. I saw a trailer for the new Twilight movie while
waiting for Parnassus to start, and I can tell you, that film will be linear
and expositiony from start to finish, and you'd have to tie me down to make me
watch it. And I'd still be like Jonathan Pryce at the end of Brazil rather than
actually look at it. So, Parnassus is flawed, but better than a coherent but
crap film.

As for the question of Heath Ledger's death... Apparently, Heath Ledger had
done all his location scenes. What needed to be done was do the CGI dreamworld
sequences, and we get round that by saying that Tony is two-faced (or many more)
and thus in a world of imagination presents a different face for each
situation. For instance, when he's interloping in a woman's romantic fantasy,
he looks like Johnny Depp. Makes sense, or so every woman I've ever met tells
me.

Two problems rear their heads. First, Colin Farrell. Farrell has turned in some
good performances, but this isn't one of them. And unfortunately, he's playing
Tony at the climax of the film. I would personally have switched in either
Johnny Depp or Jude Law for him. Second, I just don't get the feeling that this
was how the film was supposed to turn out. I feel there were hasty rewrites to
accomodate the lack of Heath Ledger. And the thing is, that might not be true,
they may have filmed the script with very few changes, but the overall film is
so disjointed that you can't feel confident in it. Definitely worth seeing if
you're a fan of Gilliam, though.