A light-weight but interesting film.

Rating: 6/10 (25 December 2007)

This interweaves a dark children's fairytale with an simple adult war story and the effect does leave you wondering why bother merging them? The cynical answer is that neither story is good enough or substantial enough to stand on it's own!
The stories are both quite simple with very little dialogue.
The fairytale is a very old-fashioned story of a lost fairy princess trying to regain her throne and is done well although I had heard before watching it that it was visually stunning and was a little disappointed that it isn't, it is visually interesting but certainly not stunning.
The war story is also nothing new, a vicious soldier trying to hunt down the rebels while there are spies in his camp.
The only original thing in the film is the mixing of the two stories and this is done very well with dark scenes in reality being played on top of dark fantasy scenes and the mounting desperation of Ofelia to escape her life.
The acting is good with Baquero causing none of the annoyances that often occur when children star in adult films, the rest of the cast deliver good performances keeping you interested and giving some depth to the war story.
The ending is surprising and consistent although with a little compromise to the dark theme of the rest of the film.
The problem is that the film is insubstantial, neither story line is memorable on it's own and joining them doesn't do enough to raise the film above the level of a curiosity. Worth seeing but nothing to get excited about.