Cannes. El Laberinto del Fauno.

"Hands down the most exciting and original film I've seen here," announces Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, "and the one that had me in tears during its final scenes. Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro is best known as the director of such fanboy classics as Hellboy, Mimic and Blade 2, which are cool enough in their way. Pan's Labyrinth [site] is something else again, and something far more powerful and original."

Updated through 5/28.

"[R]educing Pan's Labyrinth to its sparkling visual display would not be doing the film enough justice, as it is the story's intrigue that truly keeps audiences on the edge of their seats," writes Fabien Lemercier at Cineuropa.

Mike D'Angelo, blogging at Nerve, calls it "a more fanciful (but just as sadistic and pretentious) counterpart to director Guillermo Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone - magical underground kingdom as haven from the horrors of Franco's Spain."

Updates, 5/28: "Terrific," declares Mary Corliss at Time's site. "Lewis Carroll meets Luis Buñuel."

"Definitely not for children and in fact more of a horror film," writes Ray Bennett in the Hollywood Reporter, noting particularly the film's "extraordinary fantasy sequences."

A "richly imagined and exquisitely violent fantasy," writes Justin Chang in Variety. "Del Toro's taste for matter-of-fact surrealism inevitably means that some of the story's metaphorical and mythological underpinnings remain elusive, though for the most part the story's flow is so relentless that explanations feel almost unnecessary."

Cinematical's James Rocchi: "[A]dult fantasy fans will find it a glorious, gripping feast for the eyes that not only creates stunning images but also has the story and characters to make it penetrate past the visual cortex and linger in that place where you keep nightmares and dreams."

Posted by dwhudson at May 27, 2006 8:50 AM