(USA) Directed by Terry Gilliam. Starring Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Lily Cole.

In modern-day London, Parnassus is a grizzled old drunk who’s actually a 1,000-year-old monk leading a band of roving troubadours around town entertaining with a mirror that transports people to a magical dimension spun from the visitor’s imagination. As it goes with these sorts of things, Parnassus ends up in a shady deal with a Satan analogue named Mr. Nick (an adept Tom Waits): If Parnassus can lure enough people through the power of their imagination before Nick can lead them to succumb to temptations of the flesh (booze, women, basically all the things that Waits sings about), then the monk/drunk can free his daughter’s soul from Nick’s impending possession of it. So there’s your plot.
About 15 minutes in, the troupe discovers Tony (played by Heath Ledger) hanging under a bridge, apparently dead (spoiler alert: He’s not; although Ledger died during the movie’s filming, he appears in a good bit of it). While not the sort of performance warranting Ledger’s “swan song” status (he’s got The Joker after all), his trickster-conman Tony reminds us of what we’re sorely missing now from our pool of leading men. Some of the other major leads—Depp, Farrell, and Jude—fill in ably as fantastical versions of Tony, but they aren’t in it for long, and they pretty much stop Tony’s character from developing properly. In short, Ledger’s last performance alone is worth the price of admission—it’s just too bad it wasn’t in service of a more original premise.
For all its talk of the power of imagination, Gilliam’s CG-laden fantasy sequences, though bizarre, are frankly just boring. But at least Gilliam believes in it, carefully crafting a compelling story out of tired old parts that adds up to a fairly convincing argument for adding a little whimsy to your life. Parnassus prizes above all else, the story—and as his tale unfolds, you get the feeling Gilliam actually considers himself the old drunken wizard, and this, his tale of salvation. It’s ultimately worth stepping through his mirror once again. 4/5 stars by Zach Hines