Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a front-runner for the summer season! Though I suppose it’s not without caveat. Pacific Rim may indeed be the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater this summer, but don’t look too closely for a deep, character driven ensemble. You got your conflicted, thinky Man of Steel, now you can just sit back and watch these giant monsters and robots beat the crap out of each other for two hours.
Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a front-runner for the summer season! Though I suppose it’s not without caveat. Pacific Rim may indeed be the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater this summer, but don’t look too closely for a deep, character driven ensemble. You got your conflicted, thinky Man of Steel, now you can just sit back and watch these giant monsters and robots beat the crap out of each other for two hours.
In the near future, a giant rift to another dimension opens deep under the ocean, and from it arrive giant monsters called kaiju (you Godzilla fans will already know that term). They have come to threaten humanity and in order for us to have a chance at stopping them, we had to build massive battle robots called jaegers. Then they fight each other. And it’s totally cool.
These giant robots are manned by two people that are linked mentally, so they have to be compatible. Whatever that means. They don’t go into too much detail with some things in this movie and that’s ok. If they did, they’d have to explain more things that make you raise an eyebrow and that is SO not the point of this film.
Alright, let’s talk about that. Listen, Pacific Rim is going to appeal to a certain group of people. Not to say that they haven’t kept the whole idea simple and action-packed so that a broad audience can’t enjoy it. But the character development is mostly thin, and the story isn’t all that complex. AND it’s a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters. If you love Godzilla movies and the like, or those anime’ with people in robot/mech warrior suits doing battle (like Robotech, Neon Genesis Evangelion, etc.) then this movie will blow your mind and make you need to change your pants. Seriously. BUT, if that sort of thing doesn’t interest you in the slightest, then you may find yourself not getting it. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea.
However, the kaiju/jaeger action here is outstanding and SO much fun. And the effects are tops. Director Guillermo del Toro really knows how to stage these scenes and get great visual effects people to make these robots and monsters look fantastic. I actually noticed myself audibly reacting to some of the hits taken and received by either battle participants. Seriously, there is a whole lotta kaiju whupp-ass going on here.
The script does suffer from some simplicity and thinly developed characters, which therefore makes it more of a challenge for the viewer to invest a lot of emotion in most of them. Del Toror co-wrote Pacific Rim with writer Travis Beachem who wrote Clash of the Titans, so the lack of depth shouldn’t surprise anyone. But they do manage to add some humor and a tone of cheesey fun that let’s us all not take any of this too seriously. This is pure nonsensical, suspend-your-disbelief, cheesey fun. You migh roll your eyes occasionally, but you’ll be laughing all the while.
The jaegers are piloted by two people, and our leads are Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi. Each of them, Raliegh and Mako, respectively, have painful past memories to deal with, and seeing as these pilots have to share each others minds to operate these giant jaegers, you know there will be some conflict. But that conflict is early on in the film, and then isn’t much of an issue. Other secondary plot points take up much of the screen time, hence we never get to dig too deep into these characters. Some of those other plots involve two nerdy scientists played by Burn Gorman (Torchwood, Dark Knight Rises) and the amusing Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Ron Pearlman is on board simply to chew some scenery and ahve fun, and we have fun with him. Grounding the film and stealing every scene he’s in is Idris Elba as Stacker Pentecost, a once jaeger pilot turned leader of the jaeger program. He gets the most back story and therefore the most of our concern.
Pacific Rim isn’t the deepest of films, but it is probably the most fun as long as you keep the right attitude. Del Toro offers the good balance of East meets West as he takes elements of Japanese anime’ material and some good old fashioned 80’s action movie cheese and wraps it all up in some spectactular, fun monster battles. This film really is knida up my alley, and it’s a solid four kittenhands even with the thin plot and characters. I saw this in glorious 2D, and I would expect only serious kaiju fans would get more out of it in a 3D IMAX. But this is some big, crazy fun in the theater, for sure.
~ Neil T. Weakley, your average movie-goer, happy about this one, and waiting for Wolverine.