X-communicated

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2008)

The strategy here is obvious: discriminate from a dozen other summer movies by providing a more engaging character and more imaginative creatures.
Its with a bit of sadness that I am finding del Toro unrewarding. Its because I value deep film experiences so, and because as a class, Spanish-speaking filmmakers are head and shoulders above others in the values that matter to me: cleverness, reflection, emotional insight.
Del Toro is none of these. The story on him is that he is supposed to be a visually creative genius in the imagination department. Well, if he were, it would be an imagination focused on objects and not environments. This is a killer, because film depends on the creation of a world, and worlds are not the things in them. Its about the stuff that surrounds, governs, colors and produces those things and beings. Good plays can be based on characters, but good film always requires a world.
So okay, what about the beings? Are the characters different and deep enough for us to immediately see that this is different?
For my money, Red is drawn from pretty ordinary clichés. And the supposedly novel beings from this and "Labyrinth"?
They're impressive just because someone made them, but they all seem to come from the rubber mask tradition even though the technology doesn't limit so. This man fails on both counts as an imaginative Mexican.
The one thing that I did notice and which was remarkable was the clockworks. His first movie (I think) was "Chronos." It had an object with watchlike gears that we would sail through. The same effect is used here in several areas. One is the credits, which usually tells you this defines the universe of the film.
Its in an incidental scene where an ectoplasmic being introduces his soul into the mechanism of a complex lock in order to divine the combination. (He succeeds, opening to another world.) The fight in this episode ends with a beast getting caught in part of a related machine.
And its the primary device used in the climax, sort of bridging from the clock that drives the universe to one that drives the mechanical army. It also spills into the machinery of the each golden soldier who is indestructible because of attunement to this celestial machinery. And it provides the physical environment for the showdown between hero and villain, with them having a conventional old fight while hopping among cogs and gears Chaplinwise.
The problems are: the vision is unoriginal, and the practical stage for the final fight is hugely clunky as if it were a Busby Berkeley stage. But its more than this. Its the only thing we have that is environmental. Its the only thing given that helps define how this imaginary world works. We have a prophet who gives Red's life back and tells of things that MUST occur. But none of it is related: the machines to each other, the machines to the determinism of fate, the machines to the cinematic situation.
Orreries are special in film. They work. This comes really close to being able to work, but the filmmaker didn't seem to see it.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.