Terry Gilliam is one of the most visionary directors working today, and seemingly only someone of his level of talent would be able to rescue a film from the brink of disaster as he has here. When David Lynch revived his unbought pilot for Mulholland Dr. he could do his patch-up job with the original actors (as Naomi Watts and Laura Harring were nowhere near stars), but following the death of Heath Ledger GIlliam didn't have such a luxury, instead turning to Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, and some rewrites to salvage the film.
Sadly it will always be mentioned with reference to Ledger's death, but the concept of the three extra acotrs works rather well. The plot is basically that of a group of travelling performers, the immortal Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), his daughter (Lily Cole) and hangers on (Andrew Garfield and Verne Troyer). They have a magic mirror, which once inside the punter's imagination is brought to life, before being faced with a choice which will determine the fate of their soul. The clever part of the triple-casting is they go to the guys every time Ledger goes through the mirror so it's nowhere near as distracting as it could have been.
Being a Gilliam film, the visuals and general quirkiness are of the most concern. That said though if anything holds this film together it's the characters created and the situations they are put in rather than the style. Plummer is his most interesting in a decade, Cole shows some natural talent even if she is pushed a bit too far towards the end and Garfield finally has a role to fully exploit his natural sweetness and charm (the guy should be the British Michael Cera but instead he's been in some very gritty tv films). Tom Waits as the devil resembles a poor man's John Malkovich, Ledger is fine, but of the three replacements Depp comes to play the most.
The set-up is rather convoluted which makes it a film which isn't the easiest to follow, but it does retain an inherent likeability. Here Gilliam assembles the misfits in vintage fashion, Cole is a very odd looking girl, Troyer is the latest in a line of "vertically challenged" people he's used and the story has a sufficient charm amongst the madness. If there's a problem it's that beneath the surface there's not actually that much on offer and it probably won't stand up to too much intellectual scrutiny. That said though the cast are all very game and the dance between Cole and Waits is one of the most visually arresting scenes in recent years and worth the price of admission alone. In a way it's a shame this will always be the film Heath Ledger died doing, because really he's one of the least interesting things about it, yet that is where the curiosity will naturally come from both now and in the future. Other films of Gilliam's might have deserved the extra attention more.