Pointless

Rating: 3/10 (11 April 2007)

It is really interesting that a movie so enjoyed by some viewers can be so annoying for others. This is my general impression when I read reviews on IMDb. Pan's Labyrinth (PL) is the most typical example when it's completely incomprehensible for me how a movie can be so highly rated. The only amazing aspect of this movie is that so many viewers find it so great. OK, for sure it's visually beautiful and unusual in terms of story-telling technique, but the story is so unpleasant, one-dimensional and pointless that I just to wanted to get away from the cinema (which almost never happens).
Since I do not understand how anyone can find this movie enjoying, I will just try help you people who get disturbed by the same movie elements as myself. So if you often find the following aspects annoying in movies you should be careful before buying a ticket to this one.
* Over-simplification of evil through characters that are extremely bad for no obvious reason (black or white - no gray scales)
* Extreme violence that is completely pointless and makes you feel sick
* Sympathetic characters that you are supposed to sympathize with immediately without really getting to know them
* Two parallel story-paths (fantasy vs reality), none of which has any absorbing plot, and are completely unrelated to each other during most of the movie
Normally I hate when people express their anger and give a 1 star rating because they hate a movie that everyone else finds so great, so the only good thing about PL is that I can at least start to understand how people can become so angry with a so called cinematic masterpiece.
PS. My interpretation is that PL is a movie for artistic people that enjoy getting emotional through fuzzy fairy tales about good and evil, whereas it is not a movie for thinking people that wants to attain a higher understanding of the good and evil in man with some structure and logical congruence in the end. OK, PL actually has some congruence in the end, but this doesn't save a movie that is simply repugnant from start to finish.