Eye Candy #373 - "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus"

A movie most famous for being the one Heath Ledger was knee deep in before joining the Choir Invisible, I’m not entirely sold on the idea it would have been more coherent had he survived to complete it.  Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is an ancient monk who made a deal with the devil for longevity, with the bargain being that Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) will take any daughter Parnassus has when she reaches her 16th birthday.   In the present day, he runs a traveling theater show with a magic mirror that leads people into the depths of their imagination (which is sometimes a good thing or a bad thing).   It also happens to be his daughter’s 16th birthday.  After a particularly disastrous show, the troupe runs across man trying to hang himself named Tony (played by Ledger) that soon inserts himself into their lives.  In order to save his daughter, Parnassus and Nick lay out another wager - the first to capture five souls wins.  Tony launches himself into the task, wooing unhappy women with a chance to live out their fantasies through the magic mirror.  Every time Tony steps through the mirror he is played by a different actor (specifically the three that stepped in to cover for Ledger’s demise - Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law).  But Tony isn’t all he appears to be.  Very much in the same vein as director Terry Gilliam’s more phantasmagorical work, like “Time Bandits” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”, I don’t see how anyone thought this was going to make money at the box office.  It is definitely way way out there, particularly for the casual viewer not familiar with Gilliam).  And it’s not altogether satisfying as a motion picture (the ending seems particularly nebulous).  The acting is fine, with Plummer, Waits, and Ledger the best (the three stand-ins seem forced at best).  CGI-heavy, with multiple dream sequences, some of which are interesting.  But visuals aside, it left me with an overall ho-hum feeling.  Woodchuck sez, “Meh.”