From all accounts, it's the former- it's a Gilliam/McKeown script, like Brazil and Munchausen. The reviews at Cannes were pretty mixed, but they always are for Gilliam movies, even the brilliant ones. If nothing else, it looks like this will be gorgeous and give Tom Waits a chance to ham it up like crazy, so I can't really see how it could fail.
Oh, I didn't mean FINANCIALLY. It's Gilliam, so I'm assuming it will flop on a historic scale no matter how great it is. I just meant it can't possibly fail to justify the ticket price for me and a few other sad obsessives.
I saw this movie stoned. It is so far the only time I've actually been stoned. I'm not sure if it made the movie better or worse, but I didn't like it either way.
After that I saw Santa Claus Conquers The Martians without any MST3k/RiffTrax/CT treatment and I had a legitimate freakout in during the shit-goes-crazy scene toward the end.