Pan's Labyrinth: Mirrormask it ain't

Oh, man. We went to go see the Russian translation of Pan's Labyrinth (Lavirint Favna), and what can I say; I haven't wanted my money back from a movie in quite a while.

From watching the trailer, you are drawn into the idea that the movie will be a message of triumph over evil, and that all will be well. Much like another movie that played last summer, Mirrormask, it is about a young girl with a mother in peril. Like Mirrormask, she journeys into a world of the imagination, which is generated in rich detail for the viewer. Like Mirrormask, she is compelled to complete a quest to make her mother well again and save the day. Unlike Mirrormask, however, you are left with uncertainty about whether or not the day was really saved by the end of the film.

Pan's Labyrinth brings us face to face with a brutish evil in the form of fascist Spain during WW2, which includes gory scenes of repression, torture, and war which I think I could have done without.

In short, some scenes in Pan's Labyrinth are certainly a feast for the eyes like other fantasy movies, but that feast is stripped away quicker than facial skin off a chemical peel when the girl comes back to reality. Switching between the fantasy and reality did nothing for me, and at the end left the story in doubt. Cruelty exists, and did the heroine prevail? Serious doubts were left in my mind. Watch it if you don't have to pay.