I am a big Guillermo Del Torro fan. I am extremely fond of Blade II and Hellboy and I thought Mimic was a kick. So I was jazzed to see Pan's Labyrinth. So much so, I broke one of my cardinal rules: I went to see it at a first run theater at first run prices. There were several surprises.
Somehow I didn't receive the memo informing me that the movie was in Spanish with english subtitles. But this was not a problem as I like reading movies. The problem was that I went in expecting this fantastical allegory and what I got suckered into was a brutal movie about the Spanish civil war with very little fairy dust sprinkled on it. News flash: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead and I don't give a fuss about the Spanish Civil War. There are wonderful scenes and set pieces in this movie but IMHO Del Torro is much more successful melding reality into the fantastic than he is at grafting the fantastic onto a grim past reality. ~(no)rave!
