Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks.
Del Toro specializes in taking horror and superhero films to bold, baroque places, yet Pan's Labyrinth is a step above his usual forays into the fantastic.
– David Fear,
Time Out New York,
3 Feb 2007
fresh:
So breathtaking in its artistic ambition, so technically accomplished, so morally expansive, so fully realized that it defies the usual critical blather. See it, and celebrate that rare occasion when a director has the audacity to commit cinema.
– Ann Hornaday,
Washington Post,
3 Feb 2007
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Pan's Labyrinth suggests that fairy-tale violence helps the vulnerable process and overcome real-life conflicts and that real-life violence permanently smashes the soul and the heart.
– Carrie Rickey,
Philadelphia Inquirer,
4 Aug 2007
fresh:
This is a fantasy realm so fully and elegantly realized, it might be the adaptation of a classic novel. Yet the source is Del Toro's own capacious imagination.
– Mary Corliss,
TIME Magazine,
26 Nov 2012
fresh:
Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years.