Opens at midnight tonight...
got my tickets already. I know this is gonna be EPIC
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Pacific Rim Review: Apocalypse Cancelled (description / review from The HDR Room)
Why in the hell is Guillermo del Toro not directing the Transformers movies?
That is the only question that ran through my head during my recent screening of del Toro's latest, Pacific Rim. The director of the Hellboy films, as well as the sublime Pan's Labyrinth, proves here that he can juggle human stories with big honking robots, subtle comic relief, and his action scenes, while mostly dark -- and wet -- are easily watchable, and it is very easy to decipher what is happening. In other words, Pacific Rim is the farthest thing from the childish, insulting, visually jarring abominations that Michael Bay pukes out every three years or so.
Pacific Rim begins with the war between the inter-dimensional Kaiju (Japanese for giant beasts) and Jaegers (German for Hunter, but here they are giant, man-made mechs) well underway. We are treated to a recap of the previous few years, told mostly through news footage and narrated by Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam). In fact, the prologue lasts about 25 minutes before the title screen is even shown. The good news here is that most of the footage, including Becket's narration and seen in the trailers and commercials, is derived from this opening, meaning that for the next hundred minutes or so, we are treated to mostly new footage and some of the most incredible fights ever put on film.
Hunnam's Becket is a veteran Jaeger jockey, and together with his older brother Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff), they pilot Gypsy Danger, the Jaeger shown on the movie posters. The Jaegers are too much to handle for one pilot, so scientists created a right brain/left brain system for control, and the two pilots go into a mind-meld type of trance called a "Drift," so they can work as a single entity. The Becket brothers, being blood and sharing so many memories, are the perfect pilots, but the Kaiju are learning with each assault, and when the film opens, the evolved Kaiju strikes, nearly destroying Gypsy Danger, and sending Raleigh Becket out of the Jaeger program and into a career in construction.
Years pass and funding for the Jaeger project is shifted to the creation of a sea board wall system. The head of the Jaeger Project, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) begs for more funding and more time and is denied by world leaders. Pentecost decides that he will stage one final assault on the inter-dimensional portal deep in the Pacific Rim (hence the title) to try and close it for good. He seeks out Becket's help for the final mission and the story is set.
When Becket rejoins the program, he is introduced to Pentecost's right hand woman, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), who aims to be a Jaeger pilot, even though Pentecost forbids it. Becket also meets the father and son team of the Hansens, father Herc (Max Martini) and hotheaded son Chuck (Robert Kazinsky), as well as the best Russian team and the best Chinese team. These few Jaegers make up what is left of the once proud program.
Here the audience is also introduced to a pair of scientists, Dr. Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Dr. Gottlieb (Burn Gorman). Geiszler is a Kaiju fan, who is deeply fascinated by the monsters, and works to understand them, while Gottlieb is a straight-laced, by-the-books type who predicts that the Kaiju have a greater invasion plan in the works. Both scientists work as comic relief with Day successfully toeing the line between comedy and absurdity, while Gorman is pure straight man.
Ron Perlman also shows up midway through the second act a Kaiju parts dealer. Perlman is over the top, and I think he's the only one who understands that this movie is meant to be this way and acts accordingly.
Human element aside, people will pay to see this movie not because of Charlie Day's comedic timing, or Idris Elba's scenery-chewing, mostly-shouted line delivery and chest-thumping speeches, but because of the huge mechs vs. huge monsters. And here is where Pacific Rim delivers in spades.
ILM, who also handle the effects for that other big robot franchise, have hit a stride with the Jaegers. Most of the shots are in the dark, which makes it easier to hide technical blemishes and defects, but they make up for it in the sheer majesty of these awesome marvels. And each Jaeger is distinct in its styling and its weapon load out. In fact, during one intense battle late in the second act, Gypsy Danger pulls off what I call a "Voltron Moment" that literally made he want to applaud in my seat. The Jaegers are unique, and you start to root for them and what they can do and watching one fall is heartbreaking. I would say that I was more upset by the loss of the Jaeger than the human pilots inside.
As for the Kaiju, they are just as unique and varied as the Jaegers. There are a few design elements that carry over from each of the huge monsters (and there is a reason for that), but they also take distinct forms. There is a shark-like Kaiju, a lizard-like Kaiju and a gorilla-like Kaiju, just to name a few. And speaking of, each Kaiju is named as it breaches the portal, much like hurricanes and other natural disasters.
The action scenes are staged brilliantly and when a Jaeger pulls up an oil tanker to use as a club to beat on a Kaiju, it made the goosebumps rise all over. With each punch, slash, kick or shot, you can feel the impact; you can see the damage. Del Toro makes a case here for taking the Transformers franchise once Michael Bay is done wringing it out, and maybe salvaging a decent film or two.
Unfortunately, in a film like this, the human element becomes a distraction to what we really want to see. And that would be okay if the human element was interesting, but here it's not. Other than the comic relief and the decent performance by Idris Elba, most of the stuff here is weak and cliched. At the end of the world as we know it, I just can't buy a Jaeger jockey whipping his dick out for a measuring contest, and it comes off as ridiculous. Also, most of the human stuff is sorely predictable. Once the players are named, it's very easy to assign the fate of each with no thought at all.
But again, no one is paying to see Charlie Hunnam act. They want to see the big guys go toe to toe, and again, Pacific Rim provides.
Giant mechs vs. giant monsters has been the fanboy dream of kids going as far back to the Shogun Warrior toys of the late 1970s. Guillermo del Toro and screenwriter Travis Beacham have created a unique world for which this type of story to exist and they have succeeded mostly. Pacific Rim is one of those films that justify the need of the 700-seat auditorium with a 50-foot screen, all digital, and in this case in 3D, which is spectacular in every area. This is what going to the movies is all about. Is Pacific Rim the best movie out there? No. Is it the most fun film currently in theaters? Absolutely.
With incredible effects and a deft hand behind the camera with the audacity to create something this epic on this grand of scale, Pacific Rim shines where it needs to and is a great, fun movie. I hope that Michael Bay takes time off from his current toilet bowl filler to go see this movie, and maybe, just maybe, he will finally figure out how to do a movie like this right while working on Transformers 4. At least one can always hope.
- Jon Hueber
Pacific Rim is rated PG-13 and opens in theaters nationwide the evening of July 11, 2013.
