Review: Pacific Rim

Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures

OK, I openly admit that I was knowingly lying to myself about what this movie was going to be from the start. News about Guillermo del Toro's (Pan's Labyrinth, Hell Boy, Devil's Backbone) pet project concerning battling alien monsters with some kind of robots has been circling the web for well over 2 years now. Naturally, anyone familiar with Del Toro's knack for comic book-ish action and style had high hopes for the director trying his hand at something that sounded very close to live-action anime. Many directors have tried the same type of thing in the past with The Matrix and Kill Bill, but Del Toro seemed like an even better choice than those other guys because of his extremely nerdy tendencies and close attention to mise en scene details and tone. The closest thing Del Toro has done to the genre of Pacific Rim is the Hellboy movies, and anyone who has seen those knows they're completely ludicrous but undeniably entertaining with an obvious love and attention to the source material and world. Thus, the news that Del Toro was tackling an original sci-fi story got fans of his (like me) entirely interested and hoping for something incredibly entertaining if not actually somewhat smart. 

But then the first trailer for Pacific Rim was released and with it the flood of comparisons to Transformers and a Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich level of mindless action and destruction. And even though all the evidence for what it was was right there, I (and others) refused to believe it would only be about giant robots smashing Godzilla-like creatures in the head. There must be more to it than that! Del Toro wouldn't settle for just something like that! Unfortunately, I made the mistake of forgetting that often times huge nerds like Del Toro often get so caught up in and excited about certain things that they overindulge to a point that no one else understands the point. This has been the case in many an English class I have taken where particularly nerdy people (and by that I mean people with very specific interests and concerns who take them to ridiculous levels) talk and argue about something relentlessly and it ends up making people annoyed and making no sense in the end and you forget why the whole conversation started in the first place.

Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures

That's about all you get from this movie. There's some half-hearted attempts to add more to this world where two pilots are somehow able to connect psychologically ("drifting") to pilot one of the giant robots ("Jaegers") because one pilot can't handle the neurological stimulus or whatever. Then that whole idea/technology gets implemented to try and stop the alien-monsters ("Kaiju") or whatever. It's all very partially explained and a half-hearted attempt to create a world that feels like its grounded in some forgotten graphic novel somewhere. That's especially evident in how they include terms like Kaiju and Jaeger to define things in order to make it seem like something that's always been around or is completely normal. So, little bits and pieces of Del Toro's attempts to create a new comic book-ish universe are there, but that doesn't make up for the fact the everything remains pretty unbelievable. 

I realize to say anything in this movie about giant robots the size of skyscrapers piloted by human beings fighting alien-monsters of the same size who teleported out of a thing at the bottom of the pacific ocean (called "the breach") is "unbelievable" is a bit ridiculous in itself. But it is! Pacific Rim never fully succeeds in making the audience feel like they can "lose themselves" (whatever that really means, but that's a different issue) in the experience. And Charlie Hunnam's inability to fake an American accent (or act) or Charlie Day's frantic attempts at comedic relief are not the only things that make this so. The entire experience begins to feel like a process of just getting to the next big monster fight that all last too long but remain really cool to watch. The attempts at making actual characters out of the characters is never sincere and only succeeds in making the film feel even longer when you've known for the past hour where things are going and what will happen. So while Hunnam and Idris Elba (who I will eternally love no matter what he's in) are trying to have a serious conversation all I'm thinking is "I wonder what the next Kaiju/Godzilla monster will look like..."

Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures

I saw this in a Regal IMAX 3D (for free thanks to the same friend who got me into White House Down for free!) and it was without a doubt a very cool visual experience. It was super loud though, almost to the point of deafening which made me glad I didn't see it in RPX because my eardrums would've ruptured, I'm sure. I am not normally a fan of 3D either, but in this case it was actually pretty cool and added to the experience. But upon leaving the theater, the consensus was, as my friend said, "well that was badass" but also very much "meh." Like I said in the beginning, I don't know why I was expecting anything more than that from the beginning. There's only so much any director can do with a script based around epic robot-monster battles, and I guess Del Toro did a good job in that regard. Pacific Rim is what it is, and I think anyone looking to see it already knows if they'll enjoy it or not. Because in the end, no matter how half-hearted the rest of it may be, the special effects artists must've had a hella of time making this which makes it good for what it is: eye candy with a whole lot of pzazz (I can't believe I used the word "pzazz" but I did so deal with it!).