Oh Faires?...

Pan's Labyrinth(dir. Guillermo Del Toro)
Don't believe the hype? You better believe it. It's not a bad movie by any means, but the amount of praise it received is puzzling. The film is fairly shallow and superficial. I think of it as a cross pollination between Dancer in the Dark and Star Wars. The morality is as shallow as you can possibly get with Vidal being evil and sadistic and the rebels being the guys the audience is supposed to be rooting for. The scenes in the fantasy world and real world don't connect very well. The film almost feels like two seperate movies instead of an organic whole. The fantasy world also doesn't feel like an escape for the little girl due to it's sense of danger and horror. Why escape a real world that is brutal and cruel to a world of your imagination almost as brutal and cruel? The use of a historical backdrop is frustrating because it makes no commentary on these historical events other than a stereotypical "fascism is bad." The ending was moving because it hinted at a spirituality that was lacking from the film that it would have greatly benefited from. I feel like I would have been less harsh towards this film if it wasn't for the amount of praise it has received. It annoys me that this film is the #1 rated film on Metacritic with Killer of Sheep, which is probably the most beautiful and poetic film I have ever seen in my entire life, taking the #2 spot. Overrated, but still decent.
**1/2 out of ****