One of 2017's very best films!

Rating: 10/10 (15 February 2018)

The Shape of Water accomplishes the same subversive realist-fantasy that made Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth such a modern classic in the first place. Del Toro has achieved the same sensationalistic and stylistic modern fantasy in similar vein to Pan's and HellBoy I & II. Del Toro knows to put the REAL in 'surreal' and applies believability of the highest order.
What is it about del Toro and the way he's approached fantasy films by applying an extra dimension of reality into the mix? Pan's Labyrinth was groundbreaking for its gritty post-Spanish-Civil-War story told alongside the story of a girl who may be the long lost princess of a kingdom long-forgotten. The Shape of Water does the same thing albeit during the Cold War and in 1960s Baltimore, focusing on a mute girl and a fish-man from South America, who form a romance defying all rhyme and reason.
The Shape of Water is like an old-timey fairy-tale movie but an adult reimagining of classic Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Spielberg's ET, and even has mild elements that evoke 2K-Games' classic BioShock series.
This film is a fantasy film for naysayers of the genre; it has the kind of 'teeth' some of those critics may be sorely missing out on. This is a gorgeous piece of modern cinema that I think anyone can appreciate regardless if the people in question are avid fans of fantasy cinema or not.
Del Toro is easily one of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers and give the guy control over any fictional domain and he knows EXACTLY how to command a memorable story on the big screen.