Children of Men vs. Pan’s Labyrinth

[bad beetz]

It’s all about expectations for me with these two movies… Because of the expectations I had, Pan’s Labyrinth let me down and Children of Men delivered.

Pan’s Labyrinth: This movie let me down in the exact same way that “Contact” did. It was false advertising. With “Contact,” I wanted Jetsons walkways, multi-headed aliens, and new planets. What I got was religious conflict over who gets to go to outer space and if there really is a God or not. Boring. That wasn’t what I was there for, to see Jodie foster bicker with the religious right. “Contact” in my opinion, can suck it, and suck it hard. If you watch the trailers for it, you expect something COMPLETELY different. Weak sauce. However, if I had seen a trailer that made it out to be what it was, I probably would have thought it was a pretty darn good movie. This is why I never read reviews.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a movie about a girl in Fascist Spain where the realm oscillates between a reality filled with atrocities, and her fantasy world which she escapes to, filled with fantastic mythical creatures. The Trailers made it out to be a split in favor of the fantasy world, and that I would be awestruck with its extraordinary fairy-tale characters. [censored] that. You know what I got? A fawn, a couple fairies, a big ass boring frog, and…. OK, the eye-hand monster guy was [censored] awesome, but still, not enough. I came to see fantasy, and what I got was mostly hard painful reality. It was an 80/20 split that should have been flipped the other way around, just like “The Cell.”
I know it’s going to suck balls, but I’m really anxious to see 300M, cause I think it’s going to deliver what it promises.

Children of Men offers a creative vision of what the world is like with no one under 18 years old. It’s steadily gripping. The way its shot helps you experience violence in a new way, which is nice; because 27 years of violence on TV really helps you not feel anything when you see it. You have to shoot it in a new way to spark a feeling. I admit I’m hugely biased for this film, as anything post-apocalypse is my favorite (I just read “The Road” and loved it loved it). Anyway, it’s a fun movie, I wasn’t really bored. As a useless comment: I thought that the scene where Clive Owen is drinking around the corner while they’re talking about his lost son in the other room is sublime, because I didn’t think to myself “Oh god they’re doing ‘lost son’ character development, I should take this chance to go take a piss.” The ending’s a downer, but I don’t think there’s anything else they could have really done with it.


Anyway, both movies are pretty good, but Pan's Labrynth let me down. I was so excited for it.

[Fedfan691]

I agree with the vast majority of your assessment. I think had the hype for pan's labyrinth not been there, I would have liked it about the same as I liked children of men, which was a whole lot. But due to the disappointment from all the hype, I liked children of men much more than pan's, simply because I walked in without any real expectations.

Oh, and you're right about McCarthy's "The Road." Awesome book.

[El Diablo]

beetz,

"The way its shot helps you experience violence in a new way"

Unless you are a film fan who loves post-apocalypse/end-of-world style movies, in which case you obviously would have seen 28 Days Later and thought this was shot in a very similar manner.

[ChromePony]

I haven't seen Pan's, but I felt that Children of Men let me down a little bit. It was very well shot and put together but I kept waiting for some satifactory explanation of what happened and it just never came. This basically reduced the plot into a basic action movie, "We must accomplish this task while other people are trying to kill us", even though it was produced more artistically than say Die Hard or whatever I wanted more from the plot. I think the background story had a lot of potential so I guess I was just hoping for more and while I enjoyed it enough, it just didn't really deliver on the level I wanted it to.

[El Diablo]

beetz,

"The Trailers made it out to be a split in favor of the fantasy world"

That is a very good point. That would actually make a pretty good thread, trailers that largely misrepresent the movie.

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't seen Pan's, but I felt that Children of Men let me down a little bit. It was very well shot and put together but I kept waiting for some satifactory explanation of what happened and it just never came. This basically reduced the plot into a basic action movie, "We must accomplish this task while other people are trying to kill us", even though it was produced more artistically than say Die Hard or whatever I wanted more from the plot. I think the background story had a lot of potential so I guess I was just hoping for more and while I enjoyed it enough, it just didn't really deliver on the level I wanted it to.

[/ QUOTE ]

My roommate had read the book a while ago and liked it as a science-fiction book. Consequently, he was disappointed with the movie, because it's pretty weak in that department. Die Hard is actually I think a very valid comparison, in a lot of ways; COM is just a really effective action movie, with a sweet premise and some political commentary (Homeland Security/visual references to Abu Ghraib/etc.) thrown in. The ambush scene in particular got me on edge more than I can remember a movie doing in quite some time.

[neuroman]

Expectations ruining movies are the reason I try (as much as possible) to avoid learning anything beyond the basic premise of a movie. I find it generally makes movies in the theater more enjoyable.

[4 High]

I loved Contact and Pan's Labyrinth. That is all.

[El Diablo]

neuro and others,

I try to limit my knowledge of movies before seeing them to the Rotten Tomatoes score and a few headlines of reviews. Oftentimes, I've seen some trailers for movies, but I try to put those out of my mind as much as possible.

[tdarko]

I want to see Pan's for the opposite reason of you. I am not much of a fantasy/sci fi lover and the 80/20 gritty "painful reality" as you say is what I heard as well and this is what attracted me to this since I was initially turned off from the movie when I saw the trailer, which made it seem almost like a children's fantasy movie.

I have The Road sitting on my shelf. I need to find time to read it, thanks for reminding me.