"This is your last chance".

Rating: 8/10 (3 November 2017)

One will be struck with the way director Guillermo del Toro blends fantasy with the backdrop of a war drama. The principal character, the young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), manages to interact in both worlds, and each of them are of dark and Gothic design. Considering it's subject matter, one might initially think this would be a good movie for kids to see but there's really too much gruesome violence and mutilation that takes place to make it wholesome for youngsters. The fantasy elements may conjure up images from other films like "Alice in Wonderland" or "The Wizard of Oz", but again, those pictures were generally a lot more colorful and optimistic in tone. The one thing that disappointed me with the character of Ofelia was when she ate the grapes in the lair of The Pale Man. I really wanted her to display more self control as the heroine of the tale. Unusual too is the idea that the heroine, so called, would actually die at the end of the story, at least in the real world realm. There was some consolation in the fact that she rejoined her father in the spirit world, but the first impression adds to my caution about the film's impact on a young audience.