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
