Another movie with so much promise that just didn’t hold up to its expectations. This film suffered a set back by Heath Ledgers sudden death. Ledger was supposed to play the lead but died half way through filming. Instead of leaving Parnassus unfinished, the makers decided to use several other actors to play Ledgers part (Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law). This choice has been criticized a lot which I disagree with. It doesn’t further the story to have more then one actor playing the role but it doesn’t hurt it as well. We all know why it was done so I don’t think there is anything to criticize about it. I was quite amazed at how well it worked out with the changing faces.

The film is divided into two worlds, one is the actual world, modern London and the other world is inside Doctor Parnassus’ imagination. I thought the real world was done brilliantly. I lived in London for a while and Gilliam’s London is really spot on. Parnassus’ horse drawn circus carriage had some wonderful details and Christopher Plummer was great as Doctor Parnassus. Even though I have an unnatural hatred of Lily Cole I thought she was perfect for this role. So were Heath Ledger, Tom Waits  and newcomer Andrew Garfield. Just looking at the real world, this was a great movie.

What didn’t work at all for me were the parts inside Parnassus’ imagination. What’s annoying about this is that I expected Terry Gilliam to make this the magical part of the story. But it was just awful. Instead of doing the wonderful cut out, self made sets he (and Monty Python) is famous for, the dream sequences were all done in really bad 3D animation. I don’t see why he should have used 3D animation at all but he should have at least gotten someone who is really good at it to do it. I know students who could have made it look better then it did.

I probably could have overlooked that fact slightly if the story had been told well. But even though I liked the story it was written or told in a very sloppy way. As if it needed to be finished quickly and nobody had re-read it before it went into production. The ending was completely foreseeable although it seemed like it was supposed to be a surprise ending. Also some important details (Tony’s flute, for example) were never really explained. The film seemed to jump around a lot as well (I don’t mean between the worlds, just in itself).

In my opinion even Terry Gilliam fans should wait for the DVD to come out. At least on the small screen you can’t tell how bad the rendering really is.