MovieChat Forums > Guillermo del Toro Discussion > Seriously on the decline.

Seriously on the decline.


This guy did some amazing stuff last decade. He has done nothing but cheese and schlock in this one.

PR was a godzilla movie, so I guess it gets a pass for not trying to be anything it wasn't.

Crimson Peak was neither engrossing nor scary nor silly enough to be campy. It was just poorly conceived and a definite career misstep.

Mama was a great concept let down by some of the worst cgi of the last 5 years. I know he didn't direct it, but he was still creatively involved.

The less said about The Strain, the better. It is a parody of Blade 2, which was good campy fun.

This guy will never return to the level of quality he attained in The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. He won't even do another Hellboy 2, which was enchantingly creative. He's lost his touch, and actors would do well to avoid him in the future.

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How do you know what's going to happen to his career? Plenty of filmmaking careers have their ups and downs.

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Pans is my absolute favorite movie of all time. But since pan or hellboy2 (whichever came last) I've been severely disappointed. Strain had a good set up but damn, I couldn't watch it.

I thought years ago he was the best of the three amigos from Mexico. Pedro A, Alejandro I, and him. Now it's a joke how much better those guys are.

I hope he turns it around. No *beep* pacific rim sequel please. I'd take mimic 2 or blade 5 (or whatever they're on) over pacific ripoff.

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I wouldn't write him off yet, in fact I think he hasn't peaked yet.

The fact is GDT doesn't make movies like every other director. And so far the Studios have had a hard time marketing his films.

Yeah PR was a big monsters v. robots movie, and yeah, it could have done better, but at the end of the day, when you look at the craft and talent it took to make that movie it really holds up, and while it may not have the flash or the BO of a Transformers movie, the quality of film making between the two is enormous.

Crimson Peak. What can be said, it really wasn't meant to be a horror film, and it probably shouldn't have been released on Halloween, but again, the craft, the detail, the art of it are so compelling that it has as much re-watch ability as PL or DB.

The thing is it does take a certain audience member to appreciate GDT.

Hellboy wasn't a CBM for everyone, PL wasn't a film for everyone, PR, CP are not films for everyone.

But has he lost the passion, the technique or the ability to make masterful films? Absolutely not.

Whether or not is next film, or the film after that shatter box office records or anything like that, it won't change the fact that he has stayed true to his voice and his passions and continues to make beautiful films that touch deeply a certain kind of audience member that appreciate the choices he makes and the stories he tells.

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I agree about the other directors. Innarutu is doing Birdman, The Revenant, and Biutiful. Del Toro is doing Pacific Rim, The Strain, and Crimson Peak. There's no comparison in terms of quality.

Ridley Scott has also gone from making absolute crap (GI Jane) to great films (Gladiator) with a whole lot of mediocre ones thrown into his portfolio (Exodus, Black Rain, Prometheus). GDT might produce something good in the future, but man is he on a lousy streak right now.

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Crimson Peak was just a bad idea. It was overdone and cartoonish. The ghosts actually looked kind of bad. The film had no subtlety whatsoever. The music was very melodramatic and repetitive as well.

I guess it was the flowing clay/blood that I couldn't deal with. It was just too corny looking and to omnipresent. It was too much, literally and figuratively. All subtlety and wonder is gone when your house is constantly dripping blood.

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The melodrama is kind of the point though, and there's beauty in that.

It's melodramatic that the first time we see the sister she's in an all red dress, while everyone else is wearing golds, browns, and whites.

It's melodramatic that the father is murdered the way he is.

It's melodramatic that the house doesn't have a roof over the foyer.

It's melodramatic that the ghosts look like bleeding skeletons, but it's also completely badass that those were costumes enhanced with cgi, and not just cgi all over.

It's melodramatic all over the place from first to last, but that high drama, the overblown colors, costumes, music, camera moves is all about creating a world, a feeling, and texture of the film.

How boring would it be if GDT just made a movie that was Pride and Prejudice with some ethereal ghosts floating around, clattering shutters, creaking doors, and moaning winds? I saw the Woman in Black, and I was extremely bored the whole time.

And yeah, some one can say that it was too much and that's what turned them off from it, but being too much, high melodrama, and dramatic colors is kind of GDT's thing.

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Can't say Crimson Peak interested me. I liked Pacific Rim though.

Brony Metalhead

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Actually, the 3 Amigos are him, Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuaron. Pedro Almodovar is a Spanish director. But, that said, I still have a feeling Del Toro has something more in him yet.

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