“Big giant aliens invade Earth. What do you do about it? Build giant robots to defeat them, of course! If you cannot get behind that statement, then don’t even bother reading any futher. Just go back to Reddit. Now, if you can get behind that statement, have I got a movie for you.
I’ll admit, that on the surface, this film didn’t sound like much. Nothing in the trailers really leads you to believe that it’s anything more than Transformers lite. However, there is one thing that does make this movie stand out: Guillermo Del Toro. You know, the dude behind Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth. That guy who’s one of the ultimate movie fanboys? Yeah he directed and shares a screenplay credit on this one. Boy knows what he’s doing.
When I was watching the film, I realized that despite all odds it worked, much in the same way that District 9 did. Granted, District 9 was largely a political allegory, which wasn’t so much a factor here. However, at its heart there was a key similiarity: like District 9, Pacific Rim was a movie made for love of the genre. A big scifi action by a big kid who loves scifi action. Case in point: the aliens were named Kaiju, specifically in homage to Godzilla and other similar big bad aliens stomping city movies, which Del Toro loves with almost religious ferver. The film wasn’t trying to make a ton of money, didn’t feature some big name movie star, and didn’t take itself too seriously. The goal was simply to make a big, modern monster movie. And on that front, did it ever succeed.
That’s not to say the movie was perfect. Characters were a bit cliche. Plot was thin. Action sequences dragged out. To steal a Facebook friend’s two sentance review A: “”I could have used more interpersonal conflict.”” B: “”If there’s one thing I don’t want to watch through my 3-D glasses, it’s interpersonal conflict.”” Given all that, it was still a fun ride. Something I’ve always been adamant about on this blog is that a little bit of the proper motivation goes a long way on film, which is absolutely the case here. Sure, not all of the nuances of the technology may have been thought out, but what was there was cool to watch. Maybe there wasn’t anything too remarkable about our characters. But there was also nothing grating about them, and they were likable enough to root for them throughout. And there were giant aliens fighting giant monsters. I say mission \m/ accomplished
Pacific Rim – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/