somewhat less than the sum of its parts

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2007)

One of the cardinal rules of any good fairy tale is that, no matter how fantastical it becomes, it must make sure to keep one foot firmly planted in reality so that the story can more easily connect with the audience. In the case of "Pan's Labyrinth," however, that foot may be so firmly planted in the real world that it actually prevents the movie from cutting loose and soaring into the stratosphere of imagination and enchantment in the way we wish it would.
The movie takes place in 1944, five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War that has left Franco in power and bands of defeated Leftist rebels hiding out in the Iberian countryside. Eleven-year-old Ofelia arrives with her pregnant mother to the estate of Captain Vidal, a vicious fascist who, in a clever bit of fairy tale role reversal, plays the part of the evil stepfather of the story. As Vidal busies himself with hunting down the pesky Communist outcasts, Ofelia discovers herself drawn to a strange alternate universe, unbound by the laws of nature, which frequently opens up for her to enter and to which she alone seems privy.
There's no denying that "Pan's Labyrinth" is an extremely well made movie, miles above the average American fantasy film in terms of both sophistication and vision. Director Guillermo del Toro has fashioned a dark, violent, exquisitely realized world filled with secret passageways and awe-inspiring creatures to which Ofelia periodically retreats in an attempt to escape the even more brutal life around her. Like Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz," the lovely Ivana Baquero is the perfect heroine for the tale: wide-eyed, curious and filled with an intense longing for a world better than the one that entraps her. The movie is a miracle of art direction, set design, makeup and special effects, and it boasts some of the most dramatic use of sound this side of "Das Boot."
Yet, for all its good points, "Pan's Labyrinth" winds up disappointing us a bit in the end. For much of its running time, the movie seems to be operating in two largely different spheres - that of reality and that of fantasy - and having a hard time bringing the two together into a unified, coherent whole. It spends too much time chronicling the conflict between the fascist general and the rebels in the forest - which might be interesting in a different context and another movie - and not enough focusing on Ofelia's otherworldly adventures. Even though the emotional pull back to Kansas was never far from Dorothy's - and the audience's - consciousness, Baum knew enough not to spend too much actual time there. Del Toro, on the other hand, seems not to be able to yank himself from the scene, the result of which is that the fantasy world never exerts the magical force on us that it might have done had it been more thoroughly developed and taken a more center stage in the drama. The magical world in "Pan's Labyrinth" lacks the sort of densely plotted, compelling narrative one finds in the "Lord of the Rings" saga or "The Wizard of Oz." We don't get a clear picture of what the land itself is like, who its various inhabitants are, and what Ofelia's real role will be once she gets there.
Thus, although the parts in "Pan's Labyrinth" are better than the whole, thanks to the quality of the film-making and of Baquero's performance, those parts are often indelible and unforgettable.