Pacific Greatness

The first thing that hits you as you watch pacific rim is the scale and magnitude of this undertaking. I don’t think I have enough adjectives to describe just how ‘grande’ this project is. The set designs are elaborate constructions that fit into the apocalyptic tone of the movie. This is a world that barely has time to clean up the mess that the Kaijus and Jaegers have wrought upon it. Destruction is the topic du jour and the makers of pacific rim want you to feel like you have got a first row ticket to a world on the brink of extinction. Make no mistake, Guillermo Del Toro wants to awe you with this movie. This creation of his makes no pretense of being nothing more than an action flick. It’s Del Toro’s ode to anime, monster movies and good ole’ kick assery. Every shot meticulously builds up to the epic finale, but never for one instance lets up on the excitement that is pacific rim. If there’s one summer movie you have to watch this year, this is it. If you have ever rushed home from school to watch Voltron, G-force, Power rangers, VR troopers, Captain Power etc This movie is for you. If you ever watched Evangelion, Macross, The Big O, Gundam and all the amazing mecha shows that have come out of Japan…if you were impressed by what you saw…then most definitely this is for you. Not that you need any of these to enjoy this flick, yet we cannot deny the fact that this movie was inspired by some of the mecha shows of the late 80s and 90s. A part of my childhood was realized with this cinematic wonder and I feel so grateful to GDT and his team for making this happen. This movie will not reinvent the wheel when it comes to storytelling. In fact the plot is quite weak. Supposedly a rift in the ocean floor is responsible for a portal to another dimension, and aliens hell bent on destroying mankind have been coming into our world from this location. Enter the Jaegers (German for Hunter), a unified effort by mankind to take on these monsters. At first this seems to be working but we are quickly told that even the Jaegers are beginning to lose the war against these creatures. Pacific rim the movie, picks up from here, where the remaining Jaegers are going to make one last stand to destroy this threat. There’s one memorable line from Idris Elba’s character ‘Staker Pentecost’, when he proclaims they are no longer the military but rather the resistance. Earth’s last stand against the oncoming onslaught are a bunch of humans in mechanical weapons that may or may not be able to accomplish this task. Speaking of Idris…boy! Does he deliver. His acting is so convincing, that he steals the show whenever he is on screen. He acts like a true general who must corral the troops against their enemies amidst insurmountable odds. No matter how dire the situation, he never loses his cool. His passionate delivery and even his relationship with his protege Mori will go down as some of the more memorable moments of the movie. Yet, the true stars of this summer blockbuster are the gigantic behemoths called Jaegers. Metal titans that deliver some of the best fight sequences I have ever seen in my life. As I mentioned earlier, Pacific Rim will not dazzle with its plot/storyline but it most definitely will change the way you view battle scenes especially those involving large machines and monsters. Movies like transformers and Real Steel have introduced us to robot fights. Both in their own rights have done a good job of advancing the medium, yet what they lack and where Pacific Rim trumps them both, is accurately depicting how robots of that size would move and handle combat. From your vantage point you are able to see just how much it takes to maneuver these things and the type of carnage they are capable of. It must have been a conscious effort on GDT’s part to have the humans in cities get out of the way when Robot and Kaiju are battling, but doesn’t diminish anything about the destruction strewn around when these albatrosses go at each other. Pacific Rim doesn’t avoid being cliche but in this case it actually works. There’s your usual love story, the cast off warrior looking for redemption, the character with revenge issues, the talented brat who doesn’t get along with anyone and of course the characters meant to lighten the mood in the mold of two bickering Kaiju experts with differing opinions on how to solve Earth’s monsters problem. I can’t write this review without including Ron Perlman. He is to Del Toro what Johnny Depp is to Tim Burton. Both can’t stray too far away from each other before finding themselves on screen yet again. Perlman’s character is a bit over the top, but in a movie about massive robots taking on super bugs from another dimension, can anything truly be called over the top? It wouldn’t be a GDT movie without the mandatory cool market/dungeon scene and of course the crazy creature effects. After all this is a man that is currently known as one of Hollywood’s finest effects wizards. One example of this would be the scene when Charlie Day’s character trapped in a shelter below ground comes face to face with a Kaiju. What ensues, as terrifying as the situation is portrayed on screen, is one of the most beautiful scenes of the movie. I will leave out any further details as to what happened but trust me it’s worth your time. As great as this movie is, it certainly has its flaws. I have already commented on how flimsy the plot is. Aliens didn’t fall out of the sky in this world of Del Toro and writer Travis Beacham, they crawled out of the ocean floor! Because of this though, we are able to witness some truly great fight scenes involving water. It is this over reliance on water that also acts against it in certain instances. There’s way too much rain, and sometimes the lighting is too dark to truly make out what’s going on. I wish there were more day time fights so the audience can truly marvel at the Jaegers at work. Rain is good for mood, but over reliance on it is a major bummer. In conclusion, I was stoked the very first time I saw the trailer for Pacific Rim. I eagerly gobbled up all information released in regards the movie. I knew I would enjoy it, but what I didn’t expect was the countless wows I mouthed out in the cinema and, the euphoria of watching one man’s imagination play out on screen so beautifully. Thank you Guillermo.