Pan's Labyrinth

Every now and then, a movie comes along that is so extraordinary -- so breathtaking in its artistic ambition, so technically accomplished, so morally expansive, so fully realized -- that it defies the usual critical blather. Just see it, you want to tell readers. See it, and celebrate that rare occasion when a director has the audacity to commit cinema.

Such is the case with "Pan's Labyrinth," Guillermo Del Toro's visionary parable that would mark the zenith of the 42-year-old filmmaker's career were he not still so young. A visually dazzling fairy tale set in Franco-era Spain, this meditation on the costs and limits of totalitarianism combines the Gothic fantasy that has been Del Toro's signature -- from his debut, "Cronos," through comic book adaptations such as "Blade II" and "Hellboy" -- with the themes and setting of his 2001 historical drama, "The Devil's Backbone."