Me and Guillermo del Toro - won't happen

Rating: 2/10 (6 May 2020)

After having seen 'Pan's Labyinth' many years ago and really disliking it firstly for its awfully detailed violence scenes and the general mood in the movie which was just not nicely melancholic but somehow off for me, I now watched 'the shape of water' and well, what can I say? Same thing again.
B. del Torro seems to have a fascination with sadistic, brutal male characters, in the Pan movie it was the stepfater of the girl, here it is exactly the same character with just a different name, here now torturing the aquatic man. Also, although again the movie was somehoe beautifully equipped with old-fashioned furniture and a kind of nice 50s/60s vibe, it again had this unpleasant nightmare-like vibe to it I already disliked in the other movie.
I watched the whole movie and I must sadly say it left me completely cold concerning all the characters, it just didn't get through to me at all. And no, I'm no generally not into these kind of fantasy movies, I was one of the few who really likes 'Lady in the water' which had me crying. So it really is just this particuar del Torro-vibe that puts me off completely.
I would have still given the movie four stars but what botherd the heck out of me was the del Torro had quite the cheek to just badly copy from 'Amelie' - (a wonderful movie I still cherrish after almost 20 years!). A mute main charater, almost the same haircut, the little detail stuff she does and he even used French music instead of English music? I had watched the first five minutes of the movie and already thought, common, that's from Amelie?
So, sorry, me and Benicio, it really just won't happen. I find his movies unpleasant, kind of nighthmarishly vibed, and for my taste he even steals from other great movies. I don't like it, I will never like it.