Outside a London pub, elderly sage Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) runs a struggling theatre company that includes his teenage daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), sleight-of-hand barker Anton (Andrew Garfield) and dwarf assistant Percy (Verne Troyer). Their main attraction is a portal to a magical "imaginarium" that transforms according to entrants' wildest fantasies and gives them a choice of hard self-fulfillment or easy ignorance. After a drunkard chooses the latter, Doctor Parnassus reveals he's just lost another one to Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), a personification of the Devil with whom he has made a secret deal and who will own Valentina in three days once she turns 16. Then the group by chance rescue a disgraced philanthropist named Tony Shepherd (Heath Ledger), who quickly joins their ranks as a barker even more charismatic than Anton. Tony revolutionises the group and gradually leads them on their quest through the imaginarium to win this bet with Mr. Nick.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is most known for being the movie Heath Ledger was filming when he tragically died in 2008, after which time production was temporarily suspended before Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law were cast to replace him as different physical versions of Tony as he and his gang traverse through the imaginarium's realms. (And frankly, in Ledger's performance there are glaring signs of how tired and unwell he was after making The Dark Knight.) It's a fantasy adventure from the famously oddball mind of director Terry Gilliam and his frequent co-writer Charles McKeown and this one is no exception regarding strangeness but thankfully, here those two didn't get so insistent on outlandishness that they forgot to tell a genuine, noticeable story. Instead they managed to weave one out of a warped premise rather than vice versa. It feels rather like Doctor Who meets Alice in Wonderland with a physically shape-shifting protagonist, and Gilliam injects it with consistent rhythm and enthusiasm as it progresses, with deservedly Oscar-nominated production and costume design at his command. The narrative, however, maybe isn't always as unorthodox as it considers itself and while Depp (who, like Heath, had worked with Gilliam before), Law and Farrell had great intentions in together agreeing to complete Heath's role, I didn't think any of them really tried their hardest to make Tony as dashing and nuanced as he should've been, although Garfield in an early part showed the promise that he's very much fulfilled since. Nonetheless, Mick Audsley's editing and Nicola Perini's cinematography are both energetic and sharp, and Jeff and Mychael Danna provide a suitably vibrant score. It has its drawbacks, but as a fantasy extravaganza and more importantly a swansong for Ledger (and producer William Vince, with it being dedicated to both), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is very adequately enjoyable and well-made.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is most known for being the movie Heath Ledger was filming when he tragically died in 2008, after which time production was temporarily suspended before Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law were cast to replace him as different physical versions of Tony as he and his gang traverse through the imaginarium's realms. (And frankly, in Ledger's performance there are glaring signs of how tired and unwell he was after making The Dark Knight.) It's a fantasy adventure from the famously oddball mind of director Terry Gilliam and his frequent co-writer Charles McKeown and this one is no exception regarding strangeness but thankfully, here those two didn't get so insistent on outlandishness that they forgot to tell a genuine, noticeable story. Instead they managed to weave one out of a warped premise rather than vice versa. It feels rather like Doctor Who meets Alice in Wonderland with a physically shape-shifting protagonist, and Gilliam injects it with consistent rhythm and enthusiasm as it progresses, with deservedly Oscar-nominated production and costume design at his command. The narrative, however, maybe isn't always as unorthodox as it considers itself and while Depp (who, like Heath, had worked with Gilliam before), Law and Farrell had great intentions in together agreeing to complete Heath's role, I didn't think any of them really tried their hardest to make Tony as dashing and nuanced as he should've been, although Garfield in an early part showed the promise that he's very much fulfilled since. Nonetheless, Mick Audsley's editing and Nicola Perini's cinematography are both energetic and sharp, and Jeff and Mychael Danna provide a suitably vibrant score. It has its drawbacks, but as a fantasy extravaganza and more importantly a swansong for Ledger (and producer William Vince, with it being dedicated to both), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is very adequately enjoyable and well-made.
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