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Guillermo Del Toro has a directed a surprisingly low of number of movies but great ones (Hellboy, Cronos, Devil's Backbone, Mimic) and Pan's Labyrinth beats them all. Gone are the days when fairy-tales were colourful and exciting. This one is dark, violent, gritty and top of all, disturbing. This is a stunning piece of work, with fluid, smooth CGI and great performances by almost everyone, a rarity in fantasy films. I liked the dark & unpredictable mood of the film and the life-and-death message. Since he had directed Hellboy before, I definitely saw few similarities between these two, ex: the spiral ground, officers, beasts and of course, Doug Jones.
Pan's Labyrinth unfolds like a torn old book recently uncovered from a long forgotten cupboard. It's so gripping and enchanting that the viewer is given no reason to press the pause button. The music is enthralling and the visuals are gorgeous. All the forest scenes are my favourite. It's so greatly choreographed and excellently detailed, especially the whole shoot-out sequence.Guillermo Del Toro should really direct more films like this and he should bring back most of the cast because they were, simply put, perfect!
Speaking of which, the number 1 best performance was by Maribel Verdú as Mercedes. I liked her performance and now I'm definitely seeing Y tu mamá también. Then the others I liked were Ivana Baquero as the lead role as Ofelia, one of the best child-performances I've seen, Sergi Lopez as the primary antagonist, Captain Vidal, one of the damn effective performances ever and Doug Jones as The Pale Man & Faun, with the former being a recent disturbing icon and he only appears for 5-6 minutes. The whole scene is so scary and intense.
All in all, strictly for Del Toro fans and/or fans of dark fantasy. A modern classic and won't disappoint you one bit, at least not the last quarter.
8.8/10
