The Shape of Water - DVD

An alien creature has been caught by the government and being mistreated. The Russians are trying to steal the information. A blue collar worker falls in love with the creature and is able to communicate with it. Excellent movie premise with an excellent storyline and excellent actors and actresses. A five star production.

I have to say, I wasn't too sure what to expect going into this movie. I ended up loving it, its so weird and quirky. It's beautifully put together and will keep you entranced throughout the whole movie. Definitely recommend buying.

Quite simply put, an excellent film...no weaknesses whatsoever.

Guillermo del Toro is today’s master of fantasy, having been a childhood lover of monsters growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, before making some of the finest films of recent years -- from the ghostly horror of “The Devil’s Backbone” in 2001 to his gothic horror/romance, “Crimson Peak” in 2015. Indubitably, however, his greatest film is “Pan’s Labyrinth”, the 2006 film many of us consider the finest fantasy film ever made. Now he’s broken new ground with “The Shape of Water”, one of the year’s most beautiful films. Set in Baltimore in the year 1962 at the height of the Cold War, the plot follows a mute janitor at a secret government laboratory who forms a bond with a captured amphibian of the “Creature of the Black Lagoon” variety. Her name is Elisa, and Sally Hawkins plays her with an artistry that seems to reach back to the silent days of Chaplin and Keaton. Michael Shannon, with devoted viciousness, plays the right-wing Colonel Strickland, someone more interested in dissecting the creature for exploitation purposes than he is concerned over the space race with the Soviets. Del Toro saw “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” on TV at 7 years old and it changed his life. Wishing a different ending for it in which the Gill Man and co-star Julie Adams would consummate their romance and live ‘happily ever after’, he wrote various scripts of a remake through the years that Universal studio executives wound up rejecting. “The Shape of Water” is the result of del Toro’s dream, and now today, with more permissive filmmaking allowable, he’s able to deal with the previously verboten issue between fish and human. The resulting film is a worthy accomplishment not only for its production design (embodying various shades of green) and its special effects, but also for attaining the level of a genuine adult fairy tale that deals with issues of trust, tolerance, and love in the human condition -- but most of all what it’s like to be an outsider (whether a lonely mute woman, gay man, overweight black woman, or an amphibious sea creature). “This is a healing movie for me,” del Toro states; one likes to think it would be for viewers as well.

Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, this might be one of those movies you either love or hate. Presented as both a love story and a spin on Beauty and the Beast, this isn't for children. Rated R, it includes several scenes of full frontal female nudity. I found it to be lyrical and mesmerizing and this Blu-Ray transfer is well worth the money. The video and audio are excellent, but beyond that the special features for once actually are special, particularly if you are interested in how the movie was made. Not only are some tricks revealed but there are some interview elements with Guillermo Del Toro, the director and co-writer, that clearly reveal his passion for this project. Having previously directed Hellboy, Del Toro uses what clearly was gleaned from that film and infused those elements into this one. Color and design are used overtly and covertly so that you absorb the overall tone of the movie as part of its appeal. The special features will help you understand how these things worked and made me want to watch the movie a second time in order to see those elements employed. Of course with this package you get the additional DVD disc as well as the code to access it digitally to be played on other devices. Because it's largely an interior type movie, it should hold up even on smaller screens. Add this one to your collection.