Extremely disappointing movie that intends to shock but ends up being puerile.

Rating: 3/10 (25 June 2012)

I was hoping to like Pan's labyrinth, Since in general I have great appreciation for Del Toro's stylistic approach, and I had heard that this particular movie was a dark fairytale with a riveting historical background.
Sadly, none of it really hit for me. The movie feels disingenuous throughout. It presents a fantasy world which is never more than an excuse, and which lacks any real mythology. And it presents a reality that is more of a caricature than a fairy tale.
By the end of the labyrinth, it was evident that there was no labyrinth. The very direct purpose is to bluntly sell the a simplistic political narrative under the guise of a child's vision.
The biggest problem for me was that the fairytale aspects of the movie seem tacked on, and most "fantasy" scenes don't seem to have any reason to them. This fantastical world is never developed or explored upon. Particularly, the whole Banquet hand-eyed monster (which seem's directly from silent hill), as awesome as it looks, appears to be present solely for shock value. Which is a constant that extends through a lot of the more gruesome moments of the story.
It seems that there is an intent to be art-house, but beneath that initial impression, Violence is gratuitous and juvenile, characters are laughably one-sided and ridiculous (good are good, bad are bad, and cautious are traitors).
So yeah, to me it was extremely disappointing, Seems like most of the ratings respond more to the effectiveness of it's shock value. While the simplistic fable of a political message is ignored.
However, on my analysis this movie not nearly as profound as it hopes to be.