The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009, UK/Canada/France)

It's sad that the only thing that gets me to a Terry Gilliam film these days is a rare (well, somewhat rare - he's also apparently in The Book of Eli, also coming out this month) performance by Tom Waits. I used to love Gilliam, and some of his films - Brazil in particular - will always be among my favorites. But over the last fifteen years or so, ever since the questionable success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (no one else could have adapted the book quite so well, but it was pretty much a bomb at the box office), Gilliam has gone down his own rabbit hole, bouncing back and forth between sloppy, more mainstream films like The Brothers Grimm and equally troubled personal projects such as Tideland. Parnassus has elements of both. It's got the star power and a scope that tries to play to the rafters, but the themes - about the power of choice and imagination - are pure Gilliam. Unfortunately, it's also a total mess.

I can't remember where I read someone who guessed that digital technology was the worst thing that could have happened to a director like Gilliam. Watching Parnassus, you can see exactly what they meant - the film gets caught up in extended fantasy sequences, which look fairly good, but are incredibly simplistic in content. Instead of pushing the story forward, everything grinds to a halt, and when it comes time for the big finale, Gilliam makes a crucial mistake by placing it in this fantasy world, and the movie turns into total mush.

Not that there isn't good stuff here. Gilliam's visual aesthetic is at its best when rendering images such as Parnassus' traveling show, and the wastelands that the actors live in when not performing. Lily Cole is surprisingly good as Parnassus' daughter. And Tom - Tom should act more, if he's not going to tour. You get the feeling, watching Parnassus, that Gilliam essentially let his old friend do whatever the hell he wanted, but Waits' exchanges with Plummer's Parnassus are at the heart of the film, and Waits is also the only person who looks like he's having any fun at all. Which, for a movie about the power of the imagination, is rather sad.