Movie Review - Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth (5 of 5): Pan's Labyrinth is a film about a young girl (Ofelia) who is moved out to the country with her pregnant mother to live with her new step-father, a brutal fascist officer in the pro-Franco army of 1944 Spain. When Ofelia finds a decaying labyrinth guarded by Pan, an ancient faun who claims to know her destiny, she must perform three tasks in order to take her rightful place as a princess in the labyrinth's kingdom.

The movie can best be described as a fairy-tale for adults. It can be viewed on a couple different levels, depending on the amount of complexity you want to watch the film. You can view it as strictly a fairy-tale movie and believe that everything Ofelia sees is real. Or, you can view it as a war movie and believe that Ofelia is creating this fantasy universe around her as an emotional response to being caught up in the cruelty of war and living with her sick mother. I tend to believe the later.

One thing is for sure, this is not a fairy-tale for children. This movie is brutally violent in some places and cringe worthy in others. The fantasy elements are dark and the story is generally depressing. These are not complaints, just observations. If I have to list one complaint, it is that there are not enough fantasy elements within this movie. For a movie that has been so obviously advertised as a fantasy adventure, I think the fantasy scenes are a little too few and far between. Overall though, Pan's Labyrinth is a really well told and emotional story with great acting, characters and visual effects.

I strongly encourage you to see this movie. I hope you'll get wrapped up in it as much as I did and come out of the theater feeling you experienced a really terrific story.