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I just got back from a preview showing of Pan’s Labyrinth (free tix too!). I had only watched the official trailer, and knew very little else about the film… including any reviews it had gotten. So here’s my amateur and personal opinion-based review!
First off, I quite enjoyed it, and LOVED the creatures. Nothing like good old traditional costume design, with just a touch of CGI. Don’t get me wrong; I love good CGI, but I feel it has long since grown far too overblown and overused. To me, a few tweaks here and there are welcome if they add to the overall experience. I went to the film mainly for the faun, and was in no way disappointed by his appearance and performance! 🙂
Visually, it’s spectacular in every other way as well (scenery, period sets, etc).
I found the story to be too predictable (and a bit perplexing at times) for my tastes, and the ending I felt was a mild disappointment in its execution. The pacing was nice though, and it’s neither a slog nor a hectic whirlwind to sit through.
A warning to those who have an aversion to violence and gore (and who also have not read any reviews): it is an almost shockingly graphic movie. I have a very high tolerance for both–however, Pan’s Labyrinth left even me feeling somewhat disturbed and nauseous at times. It frequently seems over the top and unnecessary to the story.
One thing I found amusing… it has a certain scene that looks to have been taken straight out of the Silent Hill game series. This was both a delightfully disturbing and macabre moment, but ultimately eye-rolling for me. Maybe if I were not already familiar with the game, it would have seemed more novel. It was still pretty intriguing psychological horror.
So, long story short, if you can tolerate brutal depictions of violence, it’s worth seeing for its other qualities. This one’s NOT intended for children; it’s most definitely a fairy tale for adults. Your kids would have to be pretty unusual (like I was, only even more so) to be able to process the information behind all the violence and disturbing imagery.
Thanks for the review, DD. That’s on my to-watch list. It’ll be out here next month. I’ll warn my brother about the gore and go prepared.
Man, I’m still undecided here. I get grossed out and freaked out very easy by graphic stuff. I had problems with the new King Kong because of the scene with the leeches. *shudder* And nobody else seems to think that was worth metioning! If that’s not so bad, how bad is this, since everyone’s going out of their way to say it’s graphic? I know I’ll love most of it, but if the graphic bits are that bad, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Yeah, I gotta say SPark, you might be better off waiting to rent or avoiding it altogether if that’s the case. It really did take a lot of my endurance to get through this one; and I’m a big fan of Akira! o.0
Thankfully, those kinds of scenes are fairly well-spaced out and it’s not endless violence or squeam-inducing moments. I was just so shocked by the degree of graphic depiction! I couldn’t keep reading the subtitles for a short while after the first instance because I was so distracted by what I saw…
It’s not the first movie to do this of course, but given the content, I didn’t see the need for so much intensity (some, yes, but…). It asks an awful lot of one’s audience.
Sparky, the leeches WERE awful.
I only got to see the DVD and I rememberd switching off around the scene with the leeches and the rexes. I felt like doing homework. Yes, thats a bad sign 😉
I anyhow believe a good story can do with much less graphic violence. Says the girl who beheads characters in her novel.
but then again my critter freakness made me watch a lot of bad horror splatter movies.
I must add however: its a big hard world out there.
People dont die a la disney stile. Neither is there a disney choice of who dies.speaking of freaked out, the one thing that still freaks me beyond all reason is the scene in “Signs” where the dad sees the alien on the other rooftop
I’m curiously waiting for the release 🙂 I think I’m gonna book the premiere, like I did with *eyeroll* Eragon.
thanks for the preview though 🙂SPark wrote:Man, I’m still undecided here. I get grossed out and freaked out very easy by graphic stuff. I had problems with the new King Kong because of the scene with the leeches. *shudder* And nobody else seems to think that was worth metioning! If that’s not so bad, how bad is this, since everyone’s going out of their way to say it’s graphic? I know I’ll love most of it, but if the graphic bits are that bad, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
I’m with you, SPark. Those leeches gave me nightmares. I still can’t watch that scene. When we watch the DVD I cover my eyes until it’s over (my husband tells me when).
Maybe I’m just more thick skinned- but what ar eyout alking about those leeches- the ones that peeled flesh from bones in the bug scene??
Bug scene was pretty gross- but I don’t like most bugs…
The ones that crawled up Andy Serkis’s arms and legs and over his head and ate him.
Did I mention I have a fear of snakes, worms, and centipedes? The snake thing is getting better, but I don’t think I’ll ever like the other two.
Yeah, very realistic visual gore and violence… beatings, shootings, er, decapitatings… again, not the worst I’ve ever seen, but it’s pretty intense. I found the close camera shots and vivid detail was what drove it a little too far.
I agree with the realism; I can’t stand a Disney-verse where everything’s all happy and perfect. But I felt there was no need to overdo the violence. We all know a civil war with cruel dictators/militant folk is a horrible and dark experience with lots of brutality. It seemed like an attempt to make the bad guy as evil as possible so you’d be sure to hate him (I HATE manipulation), and as an attractant for movie-goers who like that kind of thing. Felt a little sensationalist in a way, which was disappointing given the more deep, artistic feel of the rest of the story.
There’s just different ways of depicting the violence, or different degrees of it I guess. Perhaps not such close-up, detailed shots would have worked. They do thankfully ease off on the graphicness for some of the most dreadful of events, switching scenes or performing the act slightly off-screen at the right moment. Again, people have plenty enough imagination to figure out what happens without needing it depicted in gruesome detail, I feel.
By the same token though, I hate those films that are themselves too squeamish to show ANYthing, always alluding to death and violence in highly suggestive fashion only. My thinking is, if you are afraid of crossing that line in your films, don’t bother adding those scenes at all.
I’m waffling a lot here! I really want to see this movie, and everything I’ve heard about it has been good, but like Spark I get pretty freaked out over some stuff. And YES, Spark, the scene with the leeches FREAKED ME OUT!! I don’t really have a problem with bugs, but that bug scene gave me the WILLIES!!
Akira gave me no problems. There’s a lot of gore I can handle without batting an eye. I’m not sure what it is exactly that makes some of it horrific for me…hmmm.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
-J R R TolkienThe guy who reviewed King Kong for my local paper was so eeked out by the bug scene he actually put in the review how long into the movie to plan to take a bathroom break. He gave the time and what happened right before the bugs and urged people if they didn’t like bugs or gross scenes to leave the theater for a few minutes!
Haha! I’ve never heard anyone mention the bug scene in King Kong before (that’s still one of the movies on my to-watch list). I didn’t realize there was anything insanely disturbing in that movie… just thought there was, y’know, big monkeys!
Ok, so how would you compare the graphicness of Pan’s Labyrinth to something like… Friday the 13th? (Sorry, that’s the only experience I have with gore in movies… I don’t get out much, I guess.) I managed that one ok. And I really, really wanna see Pan’s Labyrinth.
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