Plot
In the not too distant future (where all of the best things happen) a trans-dimensional rift opens in the floor of the Pacific Ocean because of reasons, unleashing an apocalyptic herd of enormous monstrous alien beasties called Kaijus with one thing on their mind: the destruction of humankind. To fight back, scientists around the world create nuclear powered skyscraper-sized Exoskeleton mech-suits called Jaegers. Let battle commence.
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| In the future, everything will be shiny. |
Review
The beautiful thing about monster movies is that, when they’re done right, they can tap into that inner ten year-old everyone carries within them (for men at least), when nothing was cooler than smashing your toys together and arguing over who’d win in a fight. Guillermo del Toro’s latest film – Pacific Rim– is this idea with a $180 million budget behind it, coupled with a cheeky dash of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots by way of Godzillaand writer Travis Beacham’s seaside musings.
And that’s pretty much all you’ll ever need to know.
The term ‘B-Movie’ normally refers to a very specific genus of film: niche genre, self-deprecating, normally a bit icky and often ‘so bad its good.’ Outside of the latter, Pacific Rim is your prototypical B-Movie, albeit one on a majestically ridiculous scale.
Pacific Rim is to subtlety what broccoli is to a T-Rex: useless and probably separated by millions of years of evolution. The Jaeger’s have such gloriously OTT, cine-fantastic names – Crimson Typhoon, Sister Eureka – that you could swear they’re the amalgamated mechanical offspring of every 80s action hero, complete with weirdly tiny heads; cities are destroyed for filler; dialogue is delivered with constipated intensity; stuff and colours and noises and stuff and explosions and stuff just happens, always and forever from beginning to aquatic-come-trans-dimensional end.
That is Pacific Rim. And it’s absolutely glorious.
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| And aerobics will be INTENSE. And shiny. |
The ‘science’ behind how it all works is suitably pointless and baffling – something about technology called The Drift and duo (or trio) pilots that are ‘drift compatible’; there’s lots of talk about brains and neuro-whatsits so you know it’s important – characters deliver lines of imperiously ponderous dialogue with remarkable, fantastic conviction (Idris Elba’s magically named Stacker Pentecost is a wizard at this) and the action is quite possibly bigger than anything before it.
Crumbling cityscapes have become a bit blasé this summer and while Pacific Rimtakes it all up a notch (as it does with pretty much everything else, both literally and figuratively) the brain-melting action sequences can become a bit exhausting, not to mention indistinguishable. The lines between victory and defeat are blurred to say the least. It suffers from that Transformers-esque problem wherein there is so much happening – so many explosions, collisions, fluorescent goops, trains, planes and automobiles – that it can be hard to both understand or care about what’s currently assaulting your eyeballs.
Like most films of this scale and gravitas, Pacific Rim is so wholly focused on going big that it forgets about anything smaller than a skyscraper, losing all focus on character based issues and ignoring any human tragedy in the wake of the most recent crumbling cityscape. Characters are a few degrees less than one-dimensional for the most part, with Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) – co-pilot on the USA’s rejuvenated Jaeger Gipsy Danger – offering the only legitimately engaging human story amongst the cavalcade of pubescent beasty doodles and Power Ranger Megazords. The ostensible main character, Charlie Hunnam’s growly Jaeger veteran Raleigh Becket, does a decent enough job of helming the film but is about as interesting as white on paper, his ‘rivalry’ with Chuck Hansen (Robert Kazinsky, of previous Eastendersfilm bewilderingly enough,) the Australian captain of Striker Eureka, is comedy gold in its short-lived one-upmanship.
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| And sea levels will shrink. And shine. |
But then again, that’s exactly the point. Pacific Rim is Guillermo del Toro reminding us how much fun smashing your toys against one another once was (or is) and in that it undoubtedly excels. Just when things seem like they cant get any bigger, one of the demonic trans-dimensional hellbeasts sprouts wings to become Batman’s worst nightmare and apparent scourge of the moon. You can’t help but wonder whether, if given free reign to just keep on making the film, del Toro would’ve happily given Earth and Mars arms and claws and set them to fight in some epic toothy brawl.
Visuals are naturally important in a film where everything that isn’t computer-generated can be found on Ron Perlman’s forehead (here playing black market Kaiju giblets dealer Hannibal Chau) and in this respect Pacific Rim similarly excels. The CGI and all that techy wizardry is commendable, but it’s the film’s art direction and aesthetic coherence that takes home the plaudits. There’s far too much on show to fully explore here (shockingly) but with each Jaeger and Kaiju retaining a unique design while still working as a collective entity – drawing inspiration from various war-machines and animals respectively – and the production design offering a flawless interpretation of a near-future world, Pacific Rim frequently threatens near total immersion. Until, y’know, it all gets destroyed.
Bottom line, this is a film where colossal robot’ dad-run through cities wielding ships as swords. You’ll either know if that’ll work for you or not.
Oh, and kudos on GLaDOS.
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| Captured, the brooding intensity of a (shiny) adolescent goliath. |
Verdict
Pacific Rim sets out to do one thing and to do it well: entertain. As an entity it’s utterly daft, but it’s gloriously, explosively, nostalgically, engagingly daft. The perfect summer film.
4/5
The shiney shines:
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