Sooooo, decided to come out of my hermits cave to do a little review of both Pan’s Labyrinth and The Prestige, which I saw on the same night. Heavy evening I hear you cry! Why, no not really, but due to the silliness and not very convincing or otherwise pluasible story line of the The Presige, I wished I had seen it first, but alas I didn’t I saw:
Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno). It is a beautiful and disturbing story set against the time of the facist regime in a rural area of Spain in 1944. Our heroine, Ofelia, is a little girl who loves fairystories and is brought by her heavily pregnant mother to live with a facist captain who intends to find every rebel in the woods, making an example of them and killing them. Ofelia refuses to call the captain ‘father’ and withdraws into her fantasy world to cope with the realities of her life in a post war recession.
One word to describe this movie, awe-striking. I was utterly sucked into the world of Ofelia and repelled by the reality of the life she had to cope with. Guillermo Del Toro (best known for Hellboy and Blade II) has created an absolute masterpiece of adult fantasy, both visually and audibly. The audio is so crisp you could reach out and touch it. Wonderful. 5 outta freaky 5 folks. Check it out soon before it goes at your local multi-cinema-UCG-gestapo-multiplex Please note that it is Spanish and is subtitled.
And The Prestige, well what can you say. Two competing magicians in some sort of cockney London era, back in the days of flat caps, ‘Ello’ govner!’ and busty prostitutes. However, one is indeed Cockney (Christian Bale) and the other not…but rather American (Hugh ‘just look at my naked torso and howl’ Jackman). One is a really good magician but sucks at showmanship, one is a mediocre magician but is amazing at showmanship. Ah, lots of trick stealing, murder and deception I hear you cry! Yeah, but it’s not very good. Then you have Michael Caine, playing Michael Caine, who is very good at that! as the man who builds the magic tricks and blah blah blah. And then at some point my favourite actress of the moment, Ms Yohanssen, appears as the eye candy for all those guys out there. For once she can actually semi act and holds her cockney accent but she isn’t actually enough to help pull the film together….it just sucks kids…go see it for David Bowie acting for the first time in his life as a sinister character who deals with REAL magic and it is quite a pretty film to watch. I was unimpressed by it though as you have a few descent actors who don’t really get used for their full potential and the ending is just stupid…..ahhh! 2 outta 5……ahh!
Next on the agenda Jackass, Casino Royale, Tenacious D and sadly The Holiday for Jack Black…..yey!