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Craig Younkin
Movie Review
Pan's Labyrinth
By Craig Younkin Published February 18, 2007
US Release: December 29, 2006
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ivana Baquero , Doug Jones , Sergi López , Ariadna Gil
R
Running Time: 112 minutes
Domestic Box Office: $37,623,143
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ivana Baquero , Doug Jones , Sergi López , Ariadna Gil
R
Running Time: 112 minutes
Domestic Box Office: $37,623,143
C
This is a slow moving, joyless melding of fantasy and reality.
This movie really dragged; where was all this wondrous fantasy? Where was the original storytelling? Seeing a movie about the Spanish Civil War just isn't on my high priorities list but through the miracle of manipulative advertising, that's more or less the movie I had to sit through. Oh, and did I mention it's also really overrated!
For those who don't know, the story is based during the Spanish Civil War, where a young girl named Ophelia (Ivana Baquero) is brought to live on the army base of her sadistic stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez). Her mother is dying from pregnancy and she is deathly afraid of the captain and so she finds solace within a fantasy world. She meets a faun (presumaby named Pan) who tells her that she is the reincarnate of a fairytale princess, and that she must perform three tasks in order to re-claim her crown.
Is Ophelia dreaming or is this for real? An interesting question but something director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy) never seems totally interested in plumbing. The movie only really has 10 good minutes of pure fantasy. Visually, those 10 minutes are fantastic, showing us an incredibly detailed faun, a huge frog, and an incredibly pale, flabby aqua-man type thing with eye sockets built into his hands. Only it's not enough. The rest centers around the depressingly bleak civil war, where everyone stands around looking morose and ready to hang themselves, except the Captain, who's not above bashing some guy's face in with a bottle.
The characters are dull and the story never registers as being original primarily because the fantasy feels so arbitrary and background to the reality. It almost feels like del Toro made a movie about the Spanish Civil War and then later threw in some fantasy scenes just to sell it to an audience.
The tasks Ophelia must do are so easily done and last for such a short period of time that it's almost impossible to find a thrill in them before del Toro zaps us back into reality, where that task seems to have made no splash at all. Toro gladly doesn't shy away from brutal violence but it doesn't distract from the fact this is a slow moving, joyless melding of fantasy and reality.
For those who don't know, the story is based during the Spanish Civil War, where a young girl named Ophelia (Ivana Baquero) is brought to live on the army base of her sadistic stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez). Her mother is dying from pregnancy and she is deathly afraid of the captain and so she finds solace within a fantasy world. She meets a faun (presumaby named Pan) who tells her that she is the reincarnate of a fairytale princess, and that she must perform three tasks in order to re-claim her crown.
Is Ophelia dreaming or is this for real? An interesting question but something director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy) never seems totally interested in plumbing. The movie only really has 10 good minutes of pure fantasy. Visually, those 10 minutes are fantastic, showing us an incredibly detailed faun, a huge frog, and an incredibly pale, flabby aqua-man type thing with eye sockets built into his hands. Only it's not enough. The rest centers around the depressingly bleak civil war, where everyone stands around looking morose and ready to hang themselves, except the Captain, who's not above bashing some guy's face in with a bottle.
The characters are dull and the story never registers as being original primarily because the fantasy feels so arbitrary and background to the reality. It almost feels like del Toro made a movie about the Spanish Civil War and then later threw in some fantasy scenes just to sell it to an audience.
The tasks Ophelia must do are so easily done and last for such a short period of time that it's almost impossible to find a thrill in them before del Toro zaps us back into reality, where that task seems to have made no splash at all. Toro gladly doesn't shy away from brutal violence but it doesn't distract from the fact this is a slow moving, joyless melding of fantasy and reality.
Craig's Grade: C
Craig's Overall Grading: 340 graded movies
| A | 10.9% | |
| B | 41.8% | |
| C | 31.8% | |
| D | 15.3% | |
| F | 0.3% |
