Avengers Grimm

This movie has a lot of problems. There are moments of truly terrible acting. Some of the lines are extremely poorly written. There are continuity issues (especially glaring "how did they run off and suddenly get to a completely different location in a split second?" ones.) The character motivations and choices are some so illogical, and so bad, that they make no sense, some of the characters are ill defined, and the progression is sometimes so so, sometimes obvious, and even sometimes just bad. And all this, this gigantic pile of weird- bad, the movie isn't terrible, not actually.

The name choice doesn't help. It's a terrible choice for a name for this movie, other options, pretty much any other option, would have been better. It sounds like it'd be a comedy-style-version of avengers, but it's not. It has nothing to do with Marvel at all!

The core concept though, it's really not bad.

This is a movie that has moments of true B movie hilaribad and the occasional moments of "oh my gods this would be awesome if it wasn't bad".

If you like B movies, and are a forgiving personality who can laugh at the parts that don't add up, this is a diamond in the rough.

It's obvious that the familiar title is meant to lure unknown people as they assume this is a big budget title with fine presentation, while the fact is Avengers Grimm is barely the level Halloween play. It uses mythical princess' tales and translates them into modern world but the execution is far from magical. Acting is incredibly bad, graphic effect is from two decades old and no attractive princess can save it from the abysmal production.

No in-depth analysis requires. From the first couple of scenes it's clear that the acting suffers significantly. Delivery for most of these princess is outright overly dramatic or rigid reading. The actresses fit the look, but as they speak the illusion of glamor falls almost immediately.

It has some decent costume and set, although most of the scenes are shot in random warehouse or street. If anything, it's probably worth just to see mature version of the princesses for brief amusement, you don't need magic mirror to know there's not much else here.

I don't give bad votes to small publishers, much as I would like to occasionally. This would be such an occasion. These guys gotta eat, live and learn you know. Red Riding Hood (Elizabeth Peterson) and Lou Ferrigno! give a good performance. Set design is pretty good. Just about everything else is straight out of the 1980's day time television as far as sophistication of the script and special effects. The plot was derailed by the script and wooden lines.

I suspect this was a good learning experience for everyone involved in the production and I look forward to seeing more. Really, they aren't more than a mile or two from "campy" or fun.

It could make a good series (spoiler?). Despite the above I think if they get some outside help they could become a group with decent Saturday entertainment value. The vision is blurry.. but best of luck!

When Rumpelstiltskin (Casper Van Dien) kills the king of Once Upon a Time kingdom, he proposes Snow White (Lauren Parkinson) to open the portal through the Magic Mirror to the real world; otherwise he would kill her. Snow White does not accept the deal and tries to kill him, but they are sucked by the mirror and vanish. The princesses Cinderella (Milynn Sarley), Sleeping Beauty (Marah Fairclough) and Rapunzel (Rileah Vanderbilt) ask to the Magic Mirror where Snow White is; however, The Wolf (Kimo Leopoldo) has captured Red (Elizabeth Peterson ) and throws her through the Magic Mirror that breaks, sucking her, The Wolf and the princesses to the modern world. Red chases The Wolf through Los Angeles with a piece of the mirror pierced in her shoulder while Snow White rescues the princesses in a car. Soon they learn that Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin arrived a long time ago and Rumpelstiltskin is now the major of Los Angeles. Further, their only chance to return to Once Upon the Time is retrieving the piece of the mirror from Red. But first they need to destroy Rumpelstiltskin and his army.

"Avengers Grimm" is a fantasy adventure with a great premise wasted by the lack of talent. The acting of the heroins is terrible highlighting Snow White and the blonde Sleeping Beauty; the screenplay and lines are ridiculous; the special effects are poor; and the fighting choreography and battle scenes are incredibly awful. Lou "Hulk" Ferrigno has a minor participation and it is always good to see this actor. It is very funny to see the blonde Sleeping Beauty breaking the piece of glass that would be their only chance to return to their world and her reaction. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Avengers Grimm"

By all means, there are worse Asylum movies out there than Avengers Grimm, but this was especially disappointing because the premise was great, one of the best ideas they've ever come up. However, the execution was bad, terrible even at worst, and the very misleading and irrelevant title does nothing in its favour and that's putting it mildly.

What saves Avengers Grimm from being unwatchable are the confident Red of Elizabeth Peterson and Casper Van Dien who is clearly having fun as Rumpelstiltskin (the one character that the writers even attempted to do something with). The rest of the acting is atrocious, Lauren Parkinson's Snow White's line delivery just grates, Kimo Leopoldo is as un-wolf-like as one could possibly get and Marah Fairclough spends the entire time looking dead as Sleeping Beauty. There's also the most forgettable version of Cinderella ever, both in acting and how the character is written. With the exceptions of Peterson and Van Dien, nobody looks interested or like they wanted to be there. Lou Ferringo is nice to see but is made up weirdly (the Dr Freeze and Colossus comparison is pretty apt) and bogged down with bad material and an under-characterised character who's barely in the movie to make enough of an impression, good to see him again but it doesn't go beyond that.

The characters are just dull, dumb stereotypes, with characterisation almost non-existent apart from Rumpelstiltskin, while the horrid (and that's being kind) dialogue is enough to make even an amateur actor embarrassed. The story does absolutely nothing with its concept, being told in a constantly sluggishly paced, paper-thin and muddled way, further disadvantaged by very confusingly choreographed, pedestrian-paced and sloppily edited fight scenes. Avengers Grimm is directed with little competence, has a soundtrack that is too often too loud and too quirky which jars with the 'darker' (in quote marks because the movie is little more than tired cheese throughout) moments and looks cheap. A couple of sets are decent, but most are basic and too darkly lit, the editing is besieged with continuity errors with all too obvious stunt doubles, the camera work is going-through-the-motions-like and while there are worse special effects around the effects are slapdash at best.

All in all, a great idea with near-disastrous execution. 2/10 Bethany Cox