The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

While Terry Gilliam has some genuinely brilliant pieces of work on his CV he's always been better known for his disasters than his successes. At one time The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was the biggest flop in cinema history, and the documentary Lost in La Mancha made lemonade out of his inability to complete a film of Don Quixote. Even his successes have been fraught: his co-directing debut on Monty Python and the Holy Grail saw him fight endlessly with co-director and fellow Python Terry Jones and his acknowledged masterpiece Brazil was hamstrung by studio interference to the point where five different edits of the film exist. It's also been a long time since he had anything approaching a box-office smash: even those who adored Time Bandits or 12 Monkeys found little to love in recent films like Tideland and The Brothers Grimm.

Famously, Imaginarium suffered from the death of its leading man a third of the way into filming. However, the fantastical nature of the film offered a shrewd work-around with Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell all playing Heath Ledger's role in the world of the titular Imaginarium, and it actually works impressively well. The biggest failing of the film is in the pacing: the development of Ledger's character comes in fits and starts, clearly determined by what useable footage existed, and model-turned-actress Lily Cole doesn't give the central character of Valentina enough heft. Much as Sarah Polley had to take on much of the heavy lifting ofMunchausen in the central role of Sally Salt, Cole needs to do more than look pretty – and too often she struggles to do so. 

There's a lot to love about the film, though: Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits take lip-smacking delight in their duelling roles as Parnassus and Mr Nick respectively, and Andrew Garfield's staginess as Anton plays off against them perfectly. Verne Troyer is also great as Parassus' long time (and we mean long-time: the immortal Parnassus is over a thousand years old at this point) right-hand man Percy. It's when the real world interferes – as in the wobbly, badly-paced opening sequence where the Imaginarium attempts to stage outside of a London nightclub, and from which the film's balance never quite recovers – that let it down. Like most Gilliam films since Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, a few great performances and some design set-pieces add up to a film more intellectually interesting than emotionally engaging – which, for a film about the transformative powers of imagination, is a shame.

Extras Deleted scenes, 'The Imaginarium of Terry Gilliam', Heath Ledger costume test, commentary tracks, Heath Ledger interview, featurettes

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