Thanks arsaib4, there were as you mentioned moments of pure Terry Gilliam, unfortunately they were too few and too far between which was a shame.

As far as the effects vs cgi, I gave up as soon as the child swallowing horse made a run for it, in fact horses seemed to present quite a few problems along with "the gingerbread man scene" and other bits and pieces. Loved the catapult though, one scene in particular that was pure Giliam/Monty Python.

Monica Bellucci is a good actress and has a sense of humour (it also helps that she has that "classic beauty"), the film could've done with a lot more in the way of "Wicked Witch" scenes.

Cheers Trev.