Pan's Labyrinth 3D Movie Review
Pan's Labyrinth 3D Movie Review
Written By: Jacob Scarberry
3D
Guillermo del Toro's films are usually fantastic looking, from the striking sets to some colorful cinematography that could potentially make great use of the third dimension to really suck you into his fantasy worlds, as was the case with Pacific Rim some 13 years ago. I totally expected to have a blast with the newly created 4K 3D conversion completed by the artists at SDFX (no A.I. used, thank God), but to say I was disappointed is a massive understatement of the decade.
Most of the film is an overly dark blue tone with heaps of rain that immediately flattens about 85% of the image for most of the two-hour runtime, with the surprisingly few colorful scenes being the best showcases for 3D. There are occasional good 3D moments, most notably when we're introduced to the fairy leading Ofelia to the labyrinth for the first time, and there is some good depth at times. But most of the time, it was practically a 2D image while wearing cheap sunglasses in a too-warm theater.
Honestly, this is one of the worst 3D experiences of the year and is better off being watched in 2D, so you can at least admire more of the movie without a filter over your eyes.
Final 3D Score: 3/10
Movie
In 20 years, there's been a constant in the film world, both in person and online: del Toro's Oscar-winning film Pan's Labyrinth is his magnum opus. A tour-de-force. A classic fantasy film of the ages.
When a film gets overly hyped by practically everyone, I avoid watching it because once I see it, and if I don't see it like everyone else does, it tends to make me feel bad for not agreeing with the general consensus. The Shining felt like an overrated, self-indulgent piece of cinema that dangles a set of keys in front of you while taking your wallet while you're distracted for 140 minutes. The Matrix is a bad kung fu movie with flat religious ideology mixed with some admittedly great visuals, but Keanu Reeves just makes it a hard movie for me to get through.
Pan's Labyrinth is a shocker to me that it falls into this camp, and I say that with as much shame as I can possibly have, humanly possible.
The film starts off post-Spanish Civil War, with the Francoist military hunting down the rebel forces in the countryside, led by Captain Vidal (Sergi López) in a bloodthirsty fashion. He has recently married Carmen (Ariadna Gil) and impregnated her with his future son, and has them, along with her young daughter Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), move out to their military HQ at an old mill so he can raise the next generation of military leadership in his image.
Ofelia immediately dislikes the Captain, opting to escape into her books of fantasy, hoping to leave behind the horrors of war and get her new home life behind her, if even for a limited time.
Helping her and her mother is the Captain's maid, Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), essentially becoming a second mother to Ofelia while Carmen is ordered on bedrest by the base doctor, Ferreiro (Álex Angulo), after a long journey to the headquarters.
One night, Ofelia is awakened by a giant mantis/fairy, which leads her to a nearby labyrinth on the property. Upon arrival, Ofelia is met by the Faun (Doug Jones), who immediately recognizes her as the long-lost princess of the underworld, Moanna, and tasks Ofelia with three quests to fulfill her mission of returning to the underworld by the return of the full moon, or else the underworld will disappear forever. Ofelia must face the harsh realities of war and true evil and become who she was destined to be.
I really wanted to like this film, maybe even love this film, as Guillermo del Toro is one of the best filmmakers out there today, capable of mixing independent artistic pieces and Hollywood blockbusters with ease and grace. But this film just didn't work for me at all.
I was expecting an even mix of realistic and brutal war violence and a colorful fantasy-world shenanigans, but this film is largely focused on the war campaign of the Captain and his extremely brutal and uncaring nature toward others. A feel-good movie this is not, but they didn't show enough about why they're after the rebels and what the goal of the rebels are past the need for supplies and an end to fascism. I'd like some nuance with my brutality.
The fantasy elements are extremely lacking for the most part, with only one good showcase of the genre with the iconic Pale Man (also Doug Jones). But other than that, it's the Faun and a couple of fairies in the real-world settings and a brief scene with a toad in a tree. And with those scenes, the visuals are still overly dark and feel too realistic instead of otherworldly.
I was expecting to be blasted with colors when the fantasy elements happened, but it mainly kept the tones of dark blue throughout, which feels opposite of what should happen in a film of this style. Remember, this film won three Academy Awards, and it won for Best Cinematography and Best Set Design. How, when you can barely make out anything for most of the film, did it win those two Oscars? Beats me.
You may think that I absolutely loathed this endeavor from del Toro. On the contrary, it's quite good for what it is, but it still disappointed me, especially since its reputation of two decades precedes me from my very first viewing.
The screenplay is pretty good from del Toro, capably bringing an adult reality to children's fantasy, even though it needed a Spielbergian touch to really get the viewpoint of a child processing war to bring it home. The screenplay also had a bit too much of a black-and-white view, which I get is supposed to take us to the childhood stories of yesterday, but when dealing with war, the film needed more nuance and gray than just stark black-and-white heroes and villains.
The direction by del Toro is also really good, getting some fantastic performances from the cast and getting his vision on the screen his way, unhindered and creative as only he could do. It's truly auteuristic, which is getting rare in this day and age, no matter how flawed the end product comes out of his mind.
When the image isn't entirely a cyan-coated shadow, the film looks quite striking at times, but the film did not deserve the Academy Award for Cinematography (Guillermo Navarro), as there were way better options that year in 2006. Mainly, fellow Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (Emmanuel Lubezki) is still a real stunner of a film.
The real showstopper is the film's Oscar-winning makeup, which is truly amazing considering what they were able to achieve on a modest $19 million budget. The aforementioned Pale Man and the Faun are designed so brilliantly and look so lifelike and real, you'd think the filmmakers went to the Pyrenees, caught a faun, and trained it to act.
Truly groundbreaking work and easily the highlight of the film, as is the brilliant score by Javier Navarrete (also Oscar-nominated and honestly should've won over Gustavo Santaolalla's repeat win for the decidedly mid film Babel, a film also done by a fellow Mexican director, Alejandro G. Iñárritu). The score is lovely, and the hummable lullaby is insanely catchy.
So, you may think I know nothing about film in regards to good taste, and this is probably one of the hottest takes of my entire time writing reviews for 3Dor2D.com, going against an ever-growing following decades on, but I can wholly say this film is massively overrated and underwhelming.
The film is barely a fantasy film, being more akin to a Spanish-language Schindler's List of sorts, with an underrepresented fantasy element that is widely praised by the masses, which makes me wonder if they even saw the film all the way to its downbeat ending.
It's an uneven film that has loads of good things, but boy, is it one of the most overrated films of all time that really needs to be reevaluated by film historians and fans.
Final Movie Score: 6/10
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