Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim

After watching the movie, I came to the conclusion that it was a fair movie, but not a great movie. Pacific Rim was one of those movies where I wanted less of the “comedic” elements and more of the giant robots wrecking shit up against giant monsters. Then, there is that glaring plot hole that bothers me to no end. The movie needed another pass through with the script. It has that “Almost there” feeling to the overall project.

The movie is about Earth getting constantly attacked by giant monsters called Kaijus. These Kaijus appear through a space and time portal at the bottom of the Pacific (thus the name). After a while, the humans construct and defend Earth from these attacks with giant robots called Jaegers. Two-manned crews control the robots. These tactics were working until the Kaijus started getting smarter and stronger each time through the portal.

Truth be told, there is a lot of eye candy to marvel at. The fights aren’t shaky-cam like current action films today, and that is a plus. When they happen, the fight scenes are pretty good. The world-building aspects are also neat. (Though, the Jaegers seem to get the shit kicked out of them too much to make them bad ass robots for my taste. We needed to see them at least win some of the fights.)

The action scenes, if far too few, are truly fun and nice callbacks to Japanese animation shows and movies. The giant robots are all different and are really cool designs. Take that, Transformers. These things were just simply cool and it feel like an eastern animation movie coming to life. Also, throw in a great extended cameo by Ron Perlman.

There are two glaring problems with the movie.

1 There aren't enough fight scenes or action scenes with the monsters vs. robots: The movie seems to be more interested in doing a melodrama than showing us some kick ass robot vs. monster scenes. You came for the robots and they give us half ass character development and a strange (attempting) humorous plot involving Charlie Day. Day is a funny guy, but I am not sure we needed to spend so much time with him. Come on, this is a giant monster movie, people.

2 The alt-plan by the governments of the world is just simply stupid: So, just because they lose some robots, the governments around the world scrap the program and build giant walls near the oceans to keep the monsters out. Uh, how about making more and more robots? And, how would a wall keep out a monster that wants to destroy humanity? If he couldn't break through the wall, he would just take long way around. Of course, the monsters can break through the walls.

Charlie Hunnam: He does an all right job as the lead guy, but there are times when I just see Jaxx in his performance. However, he’s clearly channeling some anime lead characters with his standoffish approach.

Idris Elba: I almost wanted Elba to be the lead character. His character has an interesting background and Idris does a great job with the part. In the movie though, he’s the old school leader of the giant robot program.

Rinko Kikuchi: She does pretty well with her part,there just isn't enough with her especially with the robot stuff.

Pacific Rim is somewhat a letdown due to some of the major plot problems, like the goofy comedic subplot, and some of them aren't forgivable. The robots and monsters are truly impressive, as are the fights. There just needed to be more of them. Build upon them with each fight getting bigger and bigger. PR should have been better, because it had all the right components.

Grade: C