Should be nominated for a BP Oscar!

Rating: 9/10 (28 January 2007)

This film is exquisitely conceived and executed. I went to it fearing disappointment because of all the superlatives I'd heard applied to it beforehand, but it knocked me over! Visually and as great storytelling, del Toro has really done it! What a wonderful adventure on so many levels, full of charm, horror, deep sadness, tragedy, and abundant life! The Captain is both hatefully evil and fascinating at once. The little girl is heartrending in her courage, imagination, discernment of character, and persistence in doing what her heart knows is right, regardless of what Pan or her stepfather tells her. Surely, if "Life is beautiful" can take an American academy award nomination for best picture, this film is equally deserving, both for its craftsmanship and its gift of hope and courage in the face of the general brutality of the human condition, rather than merely being recognized in the "foreign" category. I won't burden you at length with my frustrations over the academy's tendencies lately (that is, its snobbishly unfair backlash that has besotted it ever since the 3 years it was forced to "endure" the onslaught of Peter Jackson and his unfashionably epic Tolkien films!) but this is just another symptom of what's wrong with the academy lately. Very few really deserving films actually get recognized anymore, unless they have a strong left-wing, morally ambiguous or iconoclastic bias. Alas!