Detailed movie with an interesting story, but I didn't like it

Rating: 7/10 (12 January 2007)

It seems Cuaron didn't do enough with Harry Potter 3, some depressed Latino had to create a really sad and dark children's story. That's just me blowing off steam :)
The story itself is interesting enough, if you count it involves a young girl that likes books, unfortunate enough to be the daughter of a woman who breeds children for a living (and not doing a very good job either) in Franco's Spain. If you consider that her newest "father" is a sadistic army captain, you've got the hallmarks of a cry-your-eyes-off drama.
But then the magical world makes its appearance and all that civil war drama becomes slightly bearable while trying to understand what goes on in "The Underground Kingdom". Alas, this is dark and depressing, so the only things we see from this fantastic world are just creatures that look like annoying insects or like demons from US horror movies, with the eyes in their palms and such. Then just about everybody dies. And it wasn't even an Asian movie.
It reminded me of a movie I once saw with a girl in a boarding house, always telling everybody that she is a princess (and getting hell for it) and that her father is going to save her. And finally her father did save her. The story was so similar that I thought this is a weird remake of it.
Bottom line: the details were really great, the story interesting, the acting was superb, the atmosphere and soundtrack well done, but the pace was slow, the movie boring and the whole point of the film just passed me by. Maybe it's just me.