The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

I’ve made no secret of my love for director Terry Gilliam throughout the years. Even when his movies are terrible—Tideland being his worst—he still manages to get his crazed sense of invention across. Unfortunately, in his more recent films, that sense of invention has gone hand-in-hand with an annoying lack of focus. Gilliam was filming his latest fantasy opus when star Heath Ledger died, and he has employed the likes of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law to complete his part. The plot involves a man (Christopher Plummer) given eternal youth by Satan (Tom Waits). He travels throughout England with a show on a carriage, and a mysterious young man (Ledger) joins the troupe. There’s a mirror that the characters go through, and they experience some fantasy on the other side. While Ledger and his stand-ins are good here, Gilliam lacks focus with his filmmaking, and the whole thing makes little sense.