Pacific Rim
(USA, 132 min.)
Dir. Guillermo del Toro, Writ. Travis Beacham &
Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie
Day, Ron Perlman.
Pacific Rim seems like the film that Michael Bay
always wanted to make, but probably never will. First, it’s a film, for Michael
Bay most definitely makes “movies”. Second, it's spectacular entertainment
driven mostly by special effects, yet it’s not eye-rollingly bad. Third,
it has monsters, robots, and near-apocalyptic chaos, but it also has enough
of novelty to string the action together. Pacific
Rim, despite its flaws, is a VFX extravaganza that deserves to be seen on
the big screen.
That equation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since Pacific Rim provides all one that one
expects in a major Hollywood summer movie: large-scale entertainment made for
teenage boys. Pacific Rim might not
aspire to any higher meaning, but it’s great entertainment if taken as
eye-popping diversion on a hot summer day. Guillermo del Toro, the man behind
the masterful fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth,
presents a fantastical sci-fi adventure about a future in which the human race
is threatened by gargantuan aliens known as kaijus.
One kaiju after another, as the lengthy prologue states, attacks
the metropolitan areas of the Earth, wreaking havoc and killing people while
humans scramble to take down the monster. Humans eventually realize that the
best way to defend themselves against a kaiju is to use some fancy robotic
monster-smasher-fighter-thing called a Jaeger, which is controlled by two
humans that share control by splicing the left hemisphere of one’s brain with
the right hemisphere of the other’s. Odd and convoluted, the logic of Pacific Rim is, but it all makes sense
if one simply accepts it à la The
Matrix and Inception.
The lead Jaeger of Pacific
Rim is Raleigh. Raleigh is played by Charlie Hunnam, who is built as
solidly as a robot is, but, unfortunately, he acts like one too. (Michael Bay movie
frontman Shia LaBeouf would have been just as suitable after a few more rounds at the gym.) Raleigh, after a
length bit of exposition, arrives at the fight that could be humanity’s last.
He suits up to fight the kaijus under the guidance of Stacker (Idris Elba aka
Stringer Bell) and fights with his brain spliced to a bashful young Japanese woman
named Mako Mori (Babel’s Rinko
Kikuchi). Also at the base in Hong Kong are some annoying scientists, a
father-son Jaeger team, and a drooling dog. Every monster movie cliché can be
found in Pacific Rim. Even Ron
Perlman (Hellboy) makes an appearance
as a hammy shady figure who deals black market kaiju parts.
There’s not much new to see in the epic battle of monsters
and robots in Pacific Rim, although
del Toro and his team change the lingo, add some nifty visuals, and amplify the
size of all the fighting fake things. The visual effects alone merit a
recommendation of Pacific Rim, for
the film is an awesome spectacle of futuristic vision. The technical work is
faultless and Pacific Rim is such a
visual marvel it could bring out the geek in anyone.
Pacific Rim is
also a massive disappointment, if one considers the technical pizzazz del Toro
delivers. The director has never made a film on such a scale as Pacific Rim and it’s a wonder to see
what he can do with a budget of over $180 000 000. If, however, Pacific Rim is his most aesthetically
advanced film to date, it is also his most superficial and shallow. The film
only registers on a third dimension if one buys the fancy glasses. Some characters
receive decent backstories that elevate Pacific
Rim above standard summer fare, but there isn’t much to the story besides a
plea for unity. The world can only be saved if everyone works together, Pacific Rim says, but that message is
obvious from the preamble. Mako’s story, though, offers an impressive look at
the haunting power of memory thanks to a fantastic performance by Mana Ashida
as the young girl terrorized by a kaiju. Few of the other supporting players
get such juicy roles, although Elba and Kikuchi provide enough nuance and
manner to stand out among the robots. Seeing Stringer Bell offer a rousing inspirational
speech about “cancelling the apocalypse” is campy and novel enough to make the
whole dumb spectacle of Pacific Rim work.
There’s not much to Pacific
Rim, but popcorn-movie geekery hasn’t been this spectacular in months. The
loud, snazzy fanfare has the forward motion of a video game smackdown. It’s a
rousing 132 minutes of blow-for-blow between good and evil. Genre fans will
love it, as will viewers who can switch their brains to Summer Movie Mode and
filter the nonsense into magic. Pacific Rim is mindless
big screen film, but at least it’s not a Michael Bay movie.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Pacific Rim is currently playing in wide release.
