I love this movie. I walked into the theater expecting another cheap, terrible movie that would be completely forgotten in the next few years and walked out completely changed. The imaging, the storyline, everything was beautiful. It deserved every Oscar it won, maybe more. The director did an excellent job with the movie and I’ll be the first to get it on DVD when it comes out.

The point of connecting the fantasy to the spanish civil war was to get the message across of not following someone ‘without question’. I think he did this well. It reminded me of George Miller’s ‘Babe’ and ‘Happy Feet’ in its ability to weave a complex yet imperative moral into a simple yet spellbinding story. I found this movie far less violent than something like kill bill, maybe because the story wasn’t there to make sense of the violence, but rather it was the other way around.

i went into the theatre having no idea what to expect… i didn’t even know it was a foreign film actually, haha.

but how ’bout that captain eh? one of the worst villians of all time yeah? so mean!

i felt the movie was very disturbing at parts- i’m sure many others did as well. but if the blood & gore wasn’t there, the movie wouldn’t have been any good.

one of the best movies i’ve seen in a long time, for sure.

This was a wonderful movie, and definitely worth the wait for it to come to my city. Yes, it was extremely violent at times (as you may hear in other reviews), but the violence was imperative to the storyline, as well as to the overall message and feel of the movie. It’s about the beauty and dirt of the world, and that is what it showed. I’m buying this when it comes out on DVD, and I’m making as many of my friends as I can watch it. It was a really lovely piece, and it made you stop to think at the end. Worth it all the way.

So, it’s not worth consuming because you believed it was a kid’s movie? It’s freaking rated R. Was that not a giveaway? I mean…how many kid’s movies have been rated R in the last 60 years? So all of these “it wasn’t what I was expecting” reviews are useless. Look at the rating before you see a movie. I don’t see how you could possibly not know. It’s insane.

Anyway, this is a pretty great movie. It makes Guillermo Del Toro the kind of director that gets to do anything he wants for his next picture. That’s how good it is.

It also shows us how gutless American cinema is. You’d never see a movie like this done in the US. This is a film that strangles you with the “this is how fairy tales really are” mentality. It’s hard to really get into it without spoiling the entire movie, so I’ll just summarize it in 3 bullet points.

1. Best movie of the year

2. Deserves every Oscar is was nominated for (and a few it wasn’t nominated for)

3. Guillermo Del Toro will receive a standing ovation from the crowd when he accepts his best foreign language film Oscar.

visually and emotionally stunning. this is the most creative and unexpected movie i have ever seen. some may be overwhelmed by the violence, expecting it to be nothing more than a fairy tale, but it is so much more.

I was disappointed with this one. It wasn’t anywhere near as fantastical as the previews showed. It was pretty brutally violent in many parts. All in all I walked away just not caring that much. It was a powerful movie at many points, but I found no staying power afterwards. Great acting, just some strange plot points and twists that greatly took away from it.

this was the first time i’ve ever had the experience of sitting in a movie theater where the credits started to roll…and roll and roll and not one of the audience members spoke or moved

this movie was simply spellbinding…powerful and maybe one of the most emotionally manipulative movies i’ve ever seen

a warning i sort of wished i’d received (although i might not have seen it had i known): the movie can get REALLY violent and gory, but you can usually tell when it’s going to happen…i had my hands to my eyes more than once

the violence is absolutely imperative to the rest of the story…maybe the 3rd scene in the movie is so gruesome that it leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat for the next two hours, causing an emotional reaction by the end that may leave you literally shaking

everything about this movie is beautiful, even in the bloodiest scenes…we’re talking lord of the rings quality

the acting is near perfection, and the IMAGERY….

very few words actually capture the power of this movie and its artistry…see it :) it’s essentially ineffable….

Wow.

At the theater where I saw this, there was an ad in the prelims that said, “A play is a vessel that carries us from one unique place to another. But not back.” The ad had nothing to do with the featured attraction, but it should have in that it was both a threat and a promise of what was to come.

This movie is a kick to the heart: a beautiful, ugly, gut-wrenching story of the best and worst in us all.

The film is exquisitely crafted and there is not one wrong step in the entire journey on which it takes us. Not one wrong casting, not one unnecessary word or scene, not one off costume or setting. It is worth seeing, undoubtedly more than once.

Definitely not what I was expecting, but a beautiful film nonetheless. I felt emotionally drained after seeing it, and although that sounds negative, it’s definitely positive – there aren’t enough movies that make people FEEL something.

A children’s movie unsuitable for children. A study in beauty that lingers lovingly over primitive surgery and brutality. A pretty, pretty meditation on fantasy, faerie, and fascism.

Someone asked me, “Sure it was pretty, but was it good?”

Does it matter?

I had been looking forward to this movie all year. I had to drive about 45 minutes to see it and it was well worth it. It was harsh, scary, sad and beautiful. Completely lived up to all the hype.

This is a great film: poetic, gritty and not afraid to show life at its harshest. It’s about a fascist regime, and uses fantasy and fairytale as an allegory for escape from the realities of random violence and anti-human abuses of power.

Like the Labryinth in the title, the camera and the plot meanders and twists, but at the heart there’s a secret that makes all the effort worthwhile.

This has been one of my favourite films of the year.