Once upon a time, there was a wonderful idea that traveled all the way to Hollywood. The big, bad wolves who rule the town admired its beauty. They gave the idea a pot of gold, forced it into glass slippers that didn't fit and dressed it up in clothes that no one could see. Finally, they huffed and they puffed and they blew the idea down.

Dimension Films Matt Damon is Wilhelm Grimm and Monica Bellucci is Queen Mirror in the fantasy action film "The Brothers Grimm." Click photo for larger image. "The Brothers Grimm" Rating: PG-13 for violence, frightening sequences and brief suggestive material. Starring: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger. Director: Terry Gilliam. "The Brothers Grimm" Web site Post-Gazette Family Film Guide review of "The Brothers Grimm"

That's what happened to "The Brothers Grimm."

It's a wonderful idea for a fantasy film -- a no-brainer: Early in the 19th century, the German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm gather the stories they'll later compile into the children's fables we've all grown to love.

Screenwriter Ehren Kruger -- the writer behind "The Skeleton Key" and "Reindeer Games" and co-writer of one of the "Screams" and the "Ring" series -- tied the fairy tales together, casting the good brothers as educated con men who trick superstitious villagers into paying them to "cure" their towns of non-existent hexes and curses.

It was a great idea with lots of promise, until the big, bad wolves got their paws on it and began tearing it to shreds.

Kruger added another turn: The snooty French occupation army that has invaded Germany captures the Grimms and threatens them with a long, slow death if they don't catch another band of false witch hunters who are pulling similar scams in another part of the country. With villagers' pitch forks on one side and French sabers on the other, the Grimms grimly discover that the region really is haunted, and they're forced to use their trickery and acquired knowledge of superstitions to kill the curse. The story begins to fall apart as Kruger stretches the script to link the expanding plot points.

Director of the bizarre Terry Gilliam would seem a perfect match for such a fabulous, fabulist tale. But Gilliam never seems to get his hands around the frequently unwieldy project. He gets the drama right but overplays much of the humor. It's as if lots of cool pictures were shot, but the film fell apart in the editing room.

Dimension Films Heath Ledger as Jacob Grimm and Matt Damon and Wilhelm Grimm Click photo for larger image.

Matt Damon and Heath Ledger are good actors -- surely they could make hay with such rich material. Damon is fine as the practical brother Wilhelm, the smart one who coordinates the team of con artists, sets up the technology that tricks the townies and handles all the business. His German character has a British accent, but that's a minor distraction. More troubling is Ledger's marble-mouthed garbling as insecure brother Jacob, the ethereal one who falls quickly in love and passionately scribbles regional folk tales into a binder for some future use.

Sweden's Peter Stormare goes way over the top for humor as a sadistic French soldier. His attempt at Inspector Clouseau-style bombast falls flat. Lena Headey and Monica Bellucci are better in familiar fairy tale roles.

"The Brothers Grimm" is awash in swashbuckling action, colorful mystery and comical toad licking. It's a great idea done badly, destined never to live happily every after.