Is Del Toro actually a spectacular director?

Rating: 5/10 (10 June 2018)

Director Guillermo Del Toro's skills and excellent filming techniques have been frequently questioned by many after releasing his two last films: Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak. Del Toro has always been a quite controversial director due to his unique style, however, it is agreed that his best film was The Pan's Labyrinth which caught attention and has an impact on some other directors. The question is whether he is able to make such masterpieces like Pan's Labyrinth or whether he is just an average director who had one spectacularly great film. His new film, The Shape of Water has definitely answered the question although this opinion probably won't be popular or widely held.
The Shape of Water was released in 2017 and got four Oscars including the Best motion picture of the year and the best achievement in directing. These awards may suggest that Del Toro's new film is spotless, in fact, the Academy Awards has lately become rather a show which tries to be as politically correct as possible than awarding actually great and splendid works such as mother!, Phantom Thread or Dunkirk.
The film takes place in the early 50's, 60's in the USA during the Cold War era. Sally Hawkins (Elisa Esposito) is a deaf and shy woman who works at a research facility as a janitor when a strange sea creature is captured and is held as a prisoner in this facility. Sally falls in love with this creature because they are both suffering from discrimination and she decides to rescue him.
Del Toro's most powerful tool in order to make his films astonishing is the colorful and unique world he creates. The costumes and the scenery are prominently beautiful and thus the whole atmosphere is just amazing and is on point. Visually and cinematographically The Shape of Water is immaculate and the music score and the soundtracks are also mentionable elements. On the other hand the film has some terrible mistakes and aspects that made me become disenchanted with the directing of Del Toro since I had high expectations due to the eleven Oscar nominations and my admiration towards the director. The film is full of poor dialogues and inappropriate scenes especially the ones that try to make the film more naturalistic and sincere but only making it unnecessary and unpleasant. I've lost count the number of times how many clichés were in the film moreover the whole point of the film is just a boring and frequently discussed cliché: only inner beauty can generate true love. The problem is not with the message itself but the way the film tries to depict it. It is clear that Del Toro wanted to make sure everybody understands and embraces the essence of his film for the very meaning of The Shape of Water was said by Sally in the film world by world. Del Toro doesn't even want to make people think he wants to make sure everybody can understand this simple piece of wisdom. There is no need for interpretations or deeper thoughts the goal was unambiguously to win the desired Oscar award by being politically correct and to express an extremely simple message. This is the mockery of the art of motion picture. One of the characters is depicted as homosexual although it isn't dramaturgically reasonable since there is nothing to do with his sexuality. Almost every single male character is either a bad person or a weak one. These are the most important elements that show the impact of feminism and ultra liberalism on the film industry. Politics should not affect art or sports and that is the reason why I completely dislike Del Toro's film.
In light of the above, the answer to the question is that Guillermo Del Toro may have some nice ideas and has a great fantasy; however, he is not an incredibly memorable or fantastic director after all. The Shape of Water is not worth watching although visually it is pretty well-done.