Buddy Acker (buddyacker)

Pan's Labyrinth is a joy to watch. It's like seeing everything you could ever want in life wrapped up in a movie. It strives to focus on every minute detail and you become entranced and involved within the opening minutes. The movie is simultaneously set in Spain and in a girl's imagination and it never once gets off-track in delivering a magical and beautiful escape. If you're not involved with the characters, you weren't watching the same movie I was. Sergi Lopez is sadistically good. He will give you nightmares. The main player, Ivana Baquero, is a charming girl with a perfect sense of what she needs to do. There is just so much about this movie that I can recommend. It's just, in retrospect, one of the greatest movies ever made and my film of the year for 2006. There is no reason that you should miss it. Now, to make it better, I would suggest that you watch the movie in Spanish with the English subtitles turned on (unless you are Hispanic, of course). The dubbing downplays the experience and is almost blasphemous to such a tremendous movie. "HELL YES!" Critics that agree: Roger Ebert: "One of the greatest of all fantasy films. 4 stars." A.O. Scott, The New York Times/The Tuscaloosa News: "A swift and accessible entertainment, blunt in its power and exquisite in its effects. 4 stars." Ella Taylor, LA Weekly: "Pan's Labyrinth, like his terrific 2001 "The Devil?s Backbone," Mexican horrormeister Guillermo del Toro's new movie offers us both real-life and fantastical monsters, and if you know his work, you won't waste time figuring out which to root for. 4 stars." Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "The result of the intricate interplay is a fairy tale for adults that is violent, sometimes shocking, yet utterly engrossing. And eerily instructive; it deepens our emotional understanding of fascism, and of rigid ideology's dire consequences. 4 stars." Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: "A critic trots out the word "masterpiece" at his own peril, but there it is. 4 stars." Lou Lumenick, New York Post: "Nothing [in 2006] comes close to being as utterly unforgettable as Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, an extremely dark and disturbing fairy tale for audiences say, ages 12 and up. 4 stars." Glenn Kenny, Premiere: "This intense film, a mix of horror, fantasy, and history that convinces on all those levels and mixes them up with dizzying brio, is a searing cinematic experience, a beautiful, terrifying vision from writer-director Guillermo del Toro. 4 stars." J. Hoberman, Village Voice: "Literally and figuratively marvelous, a rich, daring mix of fantasy and politics. 4 stars." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "Del Toro never coddles the audience. He means us to leave Pan's Labyrinth shaken to our souls. He succeeds. 4 stars." Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: "In tone, Pan's Labyrinth resembles a cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and H.P. Lovecraft, with some Buñuel thrown in for good measure. It is a tribute to - as well as a prime example of - the disturbing power of imagination. 4 stars." Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: "Pan's Labyrinth is a transcendent work of art. 4 stars." Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: "This is the breakthrough work of one of world cinema's most visionary artists. 4 stars." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: "Like any great myth, Pan's Labyrinth encodes its messages through displays of magic. And like any good fairy tale, it is also embroidered with threads of death and loss. 4 stars." Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun: "With a surgical saw instead of a hatchet, del Toro takes apart patriarchy and opportunistic religion as well as fascism. 4 stars." Claudia Puig: "Pan's Labyrinth artfully fuses a war film with a family melodrama and a fairy tale. The result is visually stunning and emotionally shattering. 3 1/2 stars." David Ansen, Newsweek: "Suspended between the brutally graphic and flights of lyrical fancy, Pan's Labyrinth unfolds with the confidence of a classical fable, one that paradoxically feels both timeless and startlingly new. 3 1/4 stars." Justin Chang, Variety: "There's plenty of blood -- both literal and figurative -- coursing through the veins of Pan's Labyrinth, a richly imagined and exquisitely violent fantasy from writer-director Guillermo del Toro. 3 1/4 stars."

It is an absolutely, unbelievably great movie--my favorite movie ever, to be more specific. Just when I thought that I had seen all that the movie had to offer, it surprised me again. I watched mesmerized as the movie progressed and re-defined the vampire genre, at least for me. The chemistry between the two children is also fantastic. This movie will truly teach you a lesson, that lesson being to always remember to "let the right one in". Check it out if you haven't ever seen it. "HELL YES!" Critics who agree (not with the favorite movie part, but with the other parts of the review): John Anderson, Washington Post: "In the basest of terms, a horror flick. But it's also a spectacularly moving and elegant movie, and to dismiss it into genre-hood, to mentally stuff it into the horror pigeonhole, is to overlook a remarkable film. 4 stars." Michael Phillips (yay!), Chicago Tribune: "The film is terrific. The upcoming screen version of ?Twilight? (opening Nov. 21) may be the set of fangs everyone?s waiting for, at least among certain demographics, but I can?t imagine anyone older than 15, who cherishes vampire lore or not, failing to fall for this spectacularly assured, mournfully beautiful entertainment, one that mines an old myth for all sorts of insinuating new themes and variations. 4 stars." Kim Newman, Empire: "At once a devastating, curiously uplifting inhuman drama and a superbly crafted genre exercise, Let The Right One In can stand toe-to-toe with Spirit Of The Beehive, Pan's Labyrinth or Orphee. See it. 4 stars." Jeremy Knox, Film Threat: "The best fairy tales always have so much darkness in them. That's why they resonate so deeply. This is a magnificent film. 3 3/4 stars." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "Stick your neck out for this Swedish horror show. It's a winner, full of mirth and malice, plus a young romance you'll never see on the Disney Channel. 3 1/2 stars." Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: "Funny, fear-inducing, with periods of voyeuristic gore and an undercurrent of anxiety and dread, Let the Right One In is up there with the bloodsucking classics. 3 1/2 stars."