Cronos

Starring: Federico Luppi, Rob Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Mario Ivan Martinez, Farnesio de Bernal
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
1992

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An antiques dealer (Federico Luppi) stumbles across a mysterious device believed to grant eternal youth and runs afoul of those who want the device at any cost.

Review:

Tim: Guillermo del Toro's feature film debut, Cronos is an interesting watch because so many of the sensibilities and themes of his later works show up here. It's an impressive debut and although not without its flaws, it shows a young director with outsized talent and a unique vision. I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it, but it only becomes remarkable within the larger context of del Toro's body of work.

The film starts out brilliantly. An antiques dealer and his granddaughter are fiddling with an angel statue when he notices the base is hollow. He pries it open and discovers a beautiful but mysterious device. Up to this point, I was so enthralled by the story. What is the device? Why was it hidden there? Who else wants it and what lengths will they go to get it? Del Toro creates a compelling mystery that holds our attention. Things get even better when the older man uses the scarab-like device. This is where del Toro swings widely into horror. Seeing the scarab close around the man, drawing blood and painfully injecting into him was beyond cringe-worthy. The body horror aspects were extremely well done for an Independent Mexican film. At this point, there's still so many questions, but del Toro now tints his film with horrific elements. Still, up to this point, I was so engrossed in the film.

It's at this point that the story loses its way a bit. What feels mysterious and unique at the beginning settles into a fairly typical vampire-like story. Seeing the protagonist get younger before our eyes is amazing and I loved the makeup effects to bring his youth to life. I was mesmerized by that. The film really becomes more expected and standard after that. He's drawn to consuming blood. He begins to act like an undead person. These scenes are fine, but they offer very little new. It was a bit jarring to see a film that was so compelling for the first half so lose its way in the second half. The good still outweighs the bad, but not by as much as it should have.

The script is decent, but uneven. The characters del Toro presents are a bit too obvious and one-dimensional. I was interested in the mystery aspects of the story, but I never really cared deeply about the characters. You can tell del Toro loved the gore and the horror aspects- the attention to detail, the originality of those scenes, they work so exceptionally well. He seems less interested in the humanity of these characters. It felt like as the writer, del Toro liked these characters but never loved them. He doesn't approach them with the same level of fascination as the gruesome aspects of the story. This is a complaint I had with later films and it wasn't surprising to see that show up here. He's a really good director, but characters have always been a bit of a weakness of his.

I thought Federick Luppi did an excellent job in the lead role. He's called upon to do quite a bit and he plays each scene exceptionally well. He seems like an experienced, gifted actor and the film is in good hands with him in the lead role. He plays the painful scenes as believably as the tender ones with his granddaughter. It's never a flashy performance, but it's always effective. Ron Perlman is definitely flashier. He revels being a bit over-the-top in everything he does. Perlman brings a lot of energy to his role and creates most of the film's humorous moments. His performance occasionally feels forced, but you generally enjoy his charismatic performance. The rest of the cast was fine, if unremarkable.

Cronos is definitely worth watching to see Guillermo del Toro's roots. He's certainly improved significantly as a director, but a lot of his strengths were visible in his feature film debut. It's impressive that he crafts a movie as effective (and in many cases, more effective) as many from the big studios. This is a small, independent film that punches above its weight class. It definitely has flaws, but it's an enjoyable film and worth seeking out.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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