REVIEW: THE ORPHANAGE?

This really isn't a review, just an awkward narrative with a slight bit of review in it. I realized as I started this post that I didn't have much to say but felt I should post something anyway.

On Friday night Crystal was all like "Let's see a movie. Let's see a movie." So she looks up what's going on and I'm all like "Ooo, Cloverfield." Then I realize it's Friday night and it'll be packed with kids. Then she shows me the preview for The Orphanage. It looked like a normal 'creepy child recently moving into a haunted house' kind of movie. However, it has Guillermo del Toro's name all over it. I saw half of the first Hellboy and thought it was a well-directed action superhero movie with actual style. And if all ya'll didn't know, Pan's Labyrinth is one of the very few films in recent years that I feel is in my top movies.

We arrive in the theater and that shit is empty except for an old couple, Crystal and I, and a younger couple that comes in five minutes into the movie. The opening credits were weird, and I don't mean because they were in Spanish. There were like seven different production companies involved in making the film, plus del Toro and what looked like a few television companies. So the film itself had a feel that seemed half normal haunting movie and half foreign film. The music wasn't the blatant 'oh shit, something's coming' and 'oh shit, you should be prepared for the worst' soundtrack. It had the intensity of the haunting film without crappy dialogue. In fact, it seemed to have minimal dialog at some points, very much like Pan's Labyrinth. I think it works well in the film and causes it to be more about the visual aspects and the story. The end of the film (I won't ruin it too much) started out to be an ending like Pan's Labyrinth where you think it's all worked out and it's cheesy, but nice. Then you see the truth. And at the very end you still smile just enough not to hate the ending.

When we left the theater, Crystal asked me what I thought. I felt that it was a refreshing view of a haunting-style film with real direction. I expected a bit more because it was del Toro, but I figured more of his mind was on Hellboy 2 at the time. However, it turns out I was wrong because he didn't direct The Orphanage, just produced it and thus they were able to put his name all over it.

So basically I would say it was a good movie, but nothing incredibly special. It was a well-directed, slight re-envisioning, of a movie that seems to have been done several times before.