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Created Mar 16, 2008 12:44AM PST • Edited Aug 26, 2012 11:08PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   A brave girl’s amazing fantasy, stupendously well told. Monumentally effective FX bring to life fauns, fairies and all manner of fantastical creatures, making Pan’s Labyrinth both technically and artistically engrossing.

   Faced with a horrific family situation, the brave Ofelia (played with plucky fortitude by then 12 year old Ivana Baquero) maintains her spirit by spending half the movie in a fantasy world where she is a princess of the underworld, called upon to conduct important missions of daring and courage. This allegorical counterpoint to the real-world calamities of the Spanish Civil War that comprise the other half of the movie makes for a very satisfying cinematic experience.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   As in most violent dramas, the villains must be dreadfully convincing for the story to have integrity. Sergi López, as the evil stepfather, succeeds in infamous fashion. His Captain Vidal’s perverted martial honor and grotesque sense of inherited entitlement make him a villain for the ages.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

   Most of the men were bad: All were slaves to false gods. And all were well played, especially Sergi López’s Captain Vidal.

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

   Maribel Verdú, as Mercedes, the wily and indomitable housekeeper to the evil Captain, distinguishes herself amongst a cast of strong actresses.

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Masterful creation by writer-director Guillermo del Toro. I’m not much of a feminist fantasy fan, but this movie transcends its fairy-faun roots to become a timeless classic.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    The Spanish Civil War setting of Pan’s Labyrinth was a conflict between ruinous political ideologies: Franco’s quasi-fascism on the Right; the Marxist-Anarchist Popular Front on the Left. Old World, unpalatable choices.

    del Toro masterfully uses this wartime setting as the trigger of Ofelia’s fantasy: faced with a passage between Scylla and Charybdis, our girl hero envisions herself stepping forward with grace and undaunted courage.

13. Music Great 4.0

    Haunting score, though its minimalism refrains me from awarding a higher rating.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    In addition to the justly lauded FX, the period setting of the Spanish Civil War was realistically executed.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.1

    Ugly, sadistic violence, though mercifully in contained episodes.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Brutal 3.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.3

21. Reality

    Supernatural 4.0

    While the fantasy half of the movie pegs the meters for both Physio and BioReality, the CircoReality was fairly tame. Certainly, it is an easy stretch to believe that Franco’s Nationalist troops operated in such proto-Nazi fashion as Pan’s Labyrinth’s dread Captain.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

    The fantasy creatures operated in fantasy reality, while the humans operated at only glib bioreality.

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0

    Chalk outlines that miraculously create doors through 2’ stone walls are the least of the fantasy turns here.