Outstanding Film. Worthy of the praise it has received.
Let me start this review by giving some details about the genre of story telling we know as "Fairy Tales". This genre of known as "Fairy Tales" was never originally intended for children. In fact there is a lot of historical evidence which points to the fact that most of these old stories were written by adults and meant only for adults. The original nature of "Fairy Tales" was not meant to make you feel all good inside and nor were they to always end with "And they all lived happily ever after...The End". As others have pointed out we can all blame Disney for "dumbing" down this type of genre of story telling. Neither was this form of story telling meant to always include "High Fantasy". A lot of "Fairy Tales" actually have only bits and pieces of fantasy in them to help further a story along and to draw in the listener/viewer/reader further into the plot. I wont go to deep into the plot of this film but the director Guillermo Del Toro seems to go back to the roots of the original and lost art form of "Fairy Tales". Guillermo Del Toro in my honest opinion does an outstanding job of interweaving fantasy with reality. Yet he does not allow the fantasy portions of this film to overwhelm the reality based portions or the viewer. The fantasy portions are meant to force you to make that extra emotional leap. To engage you further into a main story which is all so cruelly based in reality. The reality being the post-Spanish Civil War era in Spain and a little girl with a cruel and self-absorbed step-father who is an officer in the Franco's fascists military. Guillermo Del Toro then wraps it up with a great group of actors and a hard hitting ending. My only complaint is that as others have noted the fantasy portion at the end might have been added to appease American audiences. You'll know what I mean when you see the movie and get to that part. The reality portion of the ending stood strong without the need to include a semi-happy ending if you can call it one. The movie does hit the viewer very hard emotionally. Frankly speaking I'll be honest and admit that as a man I did cry at end. I couldn't help it because maybe I just have a heart and a soft spot for kids. I feel that any movie, book, song, poem, etc that can draw out a strong emotional reaction has reached the apex of its art form in its given genre. Oh and yes there are portions of this film that are extremely violent and should not be viewed by younger children. As others have noted this move has an "R" rating for a very good reason as it's meant for adults only. Besides I'll doubt that many young children could keep up with a foreign film done entirely in Spanish let alone understand the slight and subtle plot twists of this movie including the ending. P.S. This is a master piece of a film. To dub this film into English would be like dubbing Karl Orff's vocal portions of "Carmina Burana" into English. For those who are angry that this movie is done entirely in Spanish well all I can say is that you should learn to speak a second language for goodness sake! Or just learn to deal with subtitles in foreign films and try to follow along with the story as best you can. Our society is going to become increasingly more globally oriented as technology and time march onward toward the future. The very nature of our increasingly global economy will demand that you if not your children learn at least a second language. This will grow increasingly true for every other generation hence afterwards when you, I and your children's generation are no more. If you had no idea that this movie was a foreign film then I can understand and forgive the confusion but at least try to give this film a chance. Read more