Guillermo Del Toro

When Guillermo Del Toro’s sci fi romance The Shape of Water won the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised. Not because I didn’t particularly care for it, but because the Academy generally tends to favor dramatic, serious films with a capitol F. And this season with two different films about pivotal moments in World War II, two films dealing with race and racism, two different coming-of-age movies, a highly topical Spielberg picture about the importance of the free press, and Daniel Day Lewis’s supposedly last picture directed by artiste extraordinaire Paul Thomas Anderson, it just seemed like the movie about the fish guy was the dark horse. 

It’s rare that the Academy even recognizes genre pictures. Sci fi and fantasy films often clean up at the technical awards, but when it comes to the big six – the acting categories and Best Picture and Director, films featuring elves or ray guns get left out. In fact, the only time a straight up genre movie won for Best Picture was in 2003 when Peter Jackson’s final Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King took home the little, golden statuette. But even at the time, it was recognized that those awards were more of a recognition for Jackson’s overall achievement of filming three special effects-laden, three-and-a-half-hour films back to back and having them not suck or lose money.

So, The Shape of Water’s victory is as surprising as it is rare. It’s nice for the Academy to recognize other kinds of films besides stereotypical Oscar-bait, but it almost feels like a dodge to avoid voting for other, more politically charged films. Either way, while it is certainly an accomplishment of cinematography, special effects, and Hollywood homage, it is one of my least favorite Del Toro films. He has been creating fascinating, entertaining, idiosyncratic movies for over two decades, and now that his mainstream acceptance is likely to bring him new fans, I have a couple of recommendations from his body of work.

Del Toro basically has two branches of movies – fun and creepy. His creepy movies like The Devil’s Backbone, and Crimson Peak are beautifully constructed and designed but not much fun. There’s some sadistic glee but not a lot joy. The best two examples of his fun films are Hellboy II: The Golden Army and Pacific Rim. 

The Hellboy sequel is a rare example of the second film being stronger than the first. The Golden Army has a tighter script, better special effects, and a bigger scale than the original. It’s a fun mélange of different mythologies, and Del Toro’s love for monsters is on full display. In particular, the Angel of Death creature who makes a deal to save Hellboy’s life and the massive stone giant that rises up out of the Irish countryside are standouts.

 Pacific Rim took Del Toro’s ridiculous nerd joy to a whole new level as it is about giant robots called jaegers battling giant Godzilla-like monsters called kaiju. It continually one-ups itself in its gleeful, over-the-top sci fi silliness. The robots have names like Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka, while the evolving series of monsters just gets bigger, more elaborate, and more vicious with each iteration. At one point, during a Hong Kong street battle against a massive, terrifying kaiju, Gipsy Danger picks up a full-sized oil tanker and uses it like a baseball bat to club the monster. It’s that kind of silly-but-satisfying gesture that marks the best of Del Toro’s fun pictures.

His work is often literally the case of the world’s biggest and most talented comic book nerd being turned loose with 190 million dollar budgets.

Films like Hellboy and Pacific Rim will never even be nominated for Best Picture Oscars like The Shape of Water, but when it comes to what is actually fun to watch, I know what’s in my Blu Ray Player.