movie "review"

[paperclippy]

This weekend Ben and I went to see "Pan's Labyrinth." Some observations (no spoilers):

• I had no idea the movie was in Spanish. It's not a problem or anything, but I was surprised since I wasn't expecting it (the commercials certainly don't suggest that it's foreign).
  
• We came out of the theater feeling like we had been somewhere else for the past two hours. It was like "Oh, we're in Indiana? Really?"
  
• It had really great visuals, not just special effects but coloring and transitions between scenes and everything like that.
  
• Despite being largely about a magical world, this is so far from being a kid's movie (it's rated R for a reason). It was quite violent and bloody, and downright scary in some parts.
  
• Those of you familiar with lots of fairy tales will be able to pick out some elements that you are familiar with, which I thought was kind of interesting.
  
• If you go to see it, pay attention to the text at the beginning that sets the background. I zoned out for a minute and it took me a while to figure out what war they were in the middle of and what year it was supposed to be.
  
• Overall, it was pretty awesome. We only had two complaints: (1) we couldn't really figure out what the "message" was supposed to be, if anything, and (2) the villain had no redeeming characteristics and no real reason to be evil.