Pacific Rim
What surprised, and disappointed, me the most about this movie is just how unmemorable the kaiju ("giant monsters") are. Oh sure, they've been brought to life with the finest CG available, and they certainly are massive enough to be impressive. But there is nothing outright memorable about them. My screening got out less than four hours ago, and if someone tested my knowledge by asking me to draw a picture of one of the monsters in this film, I would probably flunk that test. In a Guillermo del Toro movie, unmemorable monster design is the last thing I expect. Remember the wondrous creatures he created for Pan's Labyrinth, or the oddball demons in his Hellboy movies? Now those are creature designs I'll never forget. It certainly doesn't help that all of this film's biggest action sequences are shot in the dark, in the rain, or in murky underwater depths. I don't even want to think about how washed out these scenes look in 3D. (I saw it in standard 2D.) It's not so dark that you can't tell what's going on, but it is an odd and distracting choice.
So, the movie throws us right into the middle of the plot, almost as if we're watching the sequel to a film that we somehow missed. Through exposition, we learn that a hole has opened up at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, releasing giant monsters from another dimension . They've already wreaked havoc on most of the world's major cities. Mankind has decided to fight back by constructing giant massive war robots. You have to wonder if that was mankind's first choice. The monsters have massive building-smashing limbs, and can shoot massive electrical charges from their gaping maws. The robots (or "Jaegers", as they're called, which is German for "hunters") are armed with hi-tech weaponry like rocket fists and arm cannons. However, the Jaegers can only be operated by two human pilots whose minds are connected in a process known as "the dirft", which allows the two humans to meld their minds together into one, so that they can basically act as one entity. Don't worry, it makes about as much sense in the movie, as well.
Our hero pilot is Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), a Jaeger pilot with a restless streak. He doesn't follow orders very well, and likes to do his own thing on the battlefield, which makes him tough to connect with most pilots. He used to be teamed up with his brother, until he was killed in battle. Raleigh has left his past as a robot pilot behind, when his former Air Marshall (Idris Elba) recruits him once again for a new mission. Raleigh may be a rebel, but he has a lot of spirit. As he rejoins the team, Raleigh is required to link up with a new partner, a soft-spoken Japanese woman named Mako (Rinko Kikuchi from Babel), who has her own personal reasons for fighting against the creatures, as well as a private history with the Air Marshall. As we're introduced to the team of robot pilots, it feels like the movie is checking off a list of cliches. There's the hot-tempered young pilot who thinks Raleigh's reckless ways are trouble. There's the older pilot who dispenses wisdom at a moment's notice. And there are a pair of scientists whose constant bickering is supposed to provide comic relief, but they kind of irritated me.
Once the characters and their predetermined paths have been set into place, Pacific Rim finally gets to what we came here to see - giant robots fighting even bigger monsters. These are fun for a while, but as I mentioned, the murkiness of the fight scenes diluted my enjoyment. And then there's the fact that the movie just doesn't seem to know when to stop. Once the action begins, we are pretty much bombarded non-stop. Thank goodness, it doesn't reach the headache-inducing levels of Man of Steel. But, as the battles began to make up almost the entirety of the film's last hour or so, I did start to find myself wishing that the thing would just wrap itself up already. The human characters are too underdeveloped for us to root for. And the monsters are kind of generic, and not that memorable. So, where is our interest supposed to lie? For a while, I was able to admire the technical craft of the fight scenes, but eventually, it all started to look the same to me. I guess if you've seen one massive kaiju being slammed by a giant robot, you've seen 'em all.
You obviously don't go to a movie like this to enjoy the dialogue, and for good reason. If anything, the screenplay by Travis Beacham and del Toro is proof of this. The actors do what they can with the cliched and corny lines they're given, but honestly, there's little they can do with them. I'm not expecting Oscar-winning dialogue and character development in a big budget kaiju movie, but couldn't there be at least one interesting character? To be honest, there is, but he's not in the movie for long. That character a sleazy black market dealer who specializes in selling the organs and pieces of dead monsters once the battles are over. He's played by Ron Perlman, and whenever he's on the screen, I wished the movie was following his story, instead of the pilots. Perlman injects his scenes with so much life, it's a shame he's introduced so late in the film, and doesn't stay around for very long. Should this movie inspire spin offs, I want one devoted to how this guy got into the business, and got to where he is when we first meet him.
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