Heath Ledger's last movie ya'll! The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus by the brilliant Terry Gilliam.
The film is set in present day about Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) a 1,000 year old travelling showman who has the power to guide people into a dream world of their imaginations, made a deal with the Devil to exchange his old daughter's soul when she turns 16 for his immortality. As time runs out, Parnassus and his travelling show rushes to find a way to break the deal just as a mysterious stranger (Heath Ledger) appears and offers help for the Imaginarium.
The special effects were fantastic as well. The sequences inside the Imaginarium are breathtaking especially Jude Laws ladder running scene, that was really cool. Johnny Depp has a very small appearence in the film and Colin Farrell provides a very surprising twist to Heath Ledger's character. Won't reveal any spoilers.. just watch the film.
Verne Troyer finally proves that he can act! Most of Christohper Plummer's best scenes were when he was with Verne Troyer's character who holds as the voice of reason behind the whole crazy exploits of Imaginarium. Verne Troyer? Voice of reason? Yeah unorthodox I know but it worked great for him.
On the production side, I really have to give it up to Terry Gilliam and the writers who cleverly edited Imaginarium to work around Heath Ledger's death. As you know, he died in the middle of shooting but the crew utilised his scenes and combined them with Depp, Law and Farrell's scenes quite nicely. Ledger's transformation into the different versions of Tony was really well done & it made sense.
So now the big question still remains. Did he go out with a bang? Does this film do Heath Ledger justice? My opinion... No it doesn't. Not by a long shot.
Imaginarium sees Heath Ledger return to the usual romance Casanova role he is used to playing. I couldn't believe the same person playing Tony in Imaginarium pulled off the greatest cinema villain of the 2000's cause he was quite bland to be honest.
He seemed like he was having a lot of fun but everything of his acting here was just.... mediocre. Maybe it was the health state Heath was in at the time of filming or something I guess The Joker was just a one hit wonder for him.
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Overall, good film, unfortunate mediocre acting by Heath Ledger. Quite a shame really that this had to be his last. He will always be remembered as The Joker in my books.
RATING: 6/10
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