Rating of
2/4
Good visuals but has severe story problems.
Ichabod Crane - wrote on 11/21/08
The one good thing about this film is it has strong visuals in the technical sense. As in the cinematography is great as are the art designs of the various creatures. But the problem with this film is it mainly is not about Pan's Labyrinth but instead about the Spanish civil war which it holds a one dimensional view of. The funny thing is it shows the Nationalists as pure evil but the Republican are merely shown but it says no reason why they are good but merely the film tells us just to side with them. It does this because it just says this Captain Vidal is so evil. And he is evil but he is a thin character because he is evil every second of the film. Amon Goeth in Schindler's list does not act evil when he is around his friends this guy does, and Amon Goeth is the real person. Anyways so this part of the story is bad well how about the other part. There is not that much that is a problem but an even bigger problem involves the little girl's decision in one scene during a fantasy part. She just acts too stupid to allow the plot to go a certain way. I am referring to a scene involving two grapes. So all in all it looks good but that is it.
Pros: Just plainly great looking. Great artistic design.
Cons: Focuses too much on the real and the fake is just a back story. The Spanish civil war is give in no depth nor are the characters on the respective sides. The nationalist is shown just to be evil and the Republic soldier are shown to be good. The film fails to show all the innocents the Republican soldier murdered.
