Pacific Rim - Review

We finally have a worthy popcorn flick of the summer. PACIFIC RIM can best be called the TOP GUN for the nerd generation. It has a big world to explore and anime to match up with, treating us to some interesting people and lifestyles, yet it still wants to feature some of Hollywood's usual action tropes, such as The Maverick, The Iceman, and the always popular father-son problems. There are many life or death battles between the mighty giant robots and the grotesque creatures that plague the titled region and they are all thrilling. Each of the robots have a signature weapon or move that will have your kid replicating later, which are expertly built up for tension before being unloaded with great force to a monster's abdomen. Make sure to see this at your best movie theater; the sound editing is pitch-perfect in making these blows feel and roar like thunder and lightning. The fights can be a bit too distracting to the viewer's eye, what with the unrelenting rainfall and ocean spillage or the constant jolting, shaky camera approach to the duo-pilot control room. Still, it's a very fun explosion of giant warfare and mecha destruction, hand-delivered by geek auteur Guillermo del Toro.


A portal to another dimension has turned up in the Pacific Ocean, spewing forth a motley crew of GAMERA rejects, dubbed not-so-subtly "Kaiju". The only logical defense against these soulless creatures are the "Jaegers", giant robots that can be only operated by two pilots with perfect brain synchronization. A pilot can not operate the machine solo, since the mental stress can literally kill them or cause them to "chase the rabbit", so each of the two only can use one side of their membrane. Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) is one of the "rock star" pilots whose fame comes from his high kill count and excellent robot mobility, thanks in large part to his co-pilot/brother and their robot Gipsy Danger. However, despite the success of the Jaegers, the world once again begins to fall apart. The incoming invaders have learned to adapt, rising higher in the dangerous category rankings, and many of the star pilots have been vanquished in battle, including Raleigh's brother. After seven years of untold destruction, the U.N. shuts down the Jaeger program due to dwindling results. Instead, they put all of their funding into legitimately building a giant wall around the coasts that will surely not fail. Commander Pentecost (Idris Elba) re-directs the remaining mech forces to Hong Kong, to establish "The Resistance" and to close the portal with one last-ditch effort. He needs Raleigh's cooperation to command the re-built Gipsy and find a suitable co-pilot candidate, possibly even Pentecost's adopted daughter Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), who also has bad memories preventing her from bonding to the machine and another partner.


As stated, the film does hit upon the usual cliches favored by Hollywood, so be ready to see a lot of shots of quiet, somber, running or cheering crowds. But the script by del Toro and Travis Beacham tends to favor world-building, dwelling or having a brief notice of topics that would come up within a monster-filled world: Despite global peace with all nations, the U.N. has become a unstable, penny-pinching bureaucracy. The rich have paid their way to now reside in comfort in the fly-over states. People still choose to live in coastal cities like Hong Kong due to major factors like a newly created religion that see the Kaiju as God's sign or the economically booming black market of Kaiju organs, livers, and even their dung. In other words, what WORLD WAR Z left out. Also, the remaining robots all come from nations that are known for boffo box office returns. The screenwriters craft such an expansive realm of characters and ideas that it does unfortunately get to be too big for a two and a quarter hour theatrical cut. Raleigh and Mako's stories take up the first half but they then get shunted to the back in the second half, where the focus resides more on the other pilots and two bumbling scientists whose on-going subplot does figure in heavily much later. This story misdirection hurts the interracial lead romance the film has playfully been building up to; the two future pilots meet cute, spend some quality time, and then call it a day, never ever getting to finally go to the prom. Expect a longer director's cut once on video.


Next to all of the big kaiju battles, the cast is highly entertaining. It's great to see Hunnam up on the big screen again. He gets to display his vast innate charm not seen since NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. Kikuchi also thankfully gets to shine the screen with her rough yet shy demeanor. Del Toro favorite Ron Pearlman has a memorable small role as a black marketer, Max Martini and Robert Kazinksy play well off each other as an Australian father/son duo, Clifton Collins Jr. turns head with his fashionable mech engineer, and the comedic stylings of Charlie Day and Burn Gorman, as a kaiju expert and a mathematician respectively, bring some much needed laughs to the picture that doesn't come from pulse checks and a Newton's cradle. In spite of all that, it is Elba who is the real star of the picture. As the Captain Okita of this rag-tag mecha group, he has the quiet charisma necessary to lead and order everyone around while also being a complete badass that would have kaiju running away in fright. His talking down speech to Raleigh about being "the fixed point, the last man standing" is incredibly magnetic.


It may not challenge the way we view the world, advance the industry in any way except for CGI effects, but PACIFIC RIM is a too good to be true blockbuster. It features a world racked with danger and universal misery yet its heroes never give up or let anything bring them down. They soldier on, seeking the world to be finally rid of these colossal pests and their ever evolving bodily weaponry. Grab a popcorn, crank up the noise, and sit back.



FINAL REVIEW: 4 / 5