Pacific Rim Movie review by Jeff Lucas What’s the world to do when giant aliens from another dimension rise from a rift in the ocean floor and attack cities along the Pacific coast? For director and co-writer Guillermo Del Toro the answer is simple. In his new sci-fi monster mash Pacific Rim, the nations of the world band together to construct and deploy giant robot war machines called Jaegers, piloted by humans, to meet and defeat the alien menace. If this sounds like the fever dream of a 12-year-old boy come to cinematic life, you’re not far off. What little boy hasn’t used his toy monsters and robots to demolish sand castles and Hot Wheels cars? The only difference here is that Del Toro is one of the few true auteurs working in genre films. His Spanish language fantasy film Pan’s Labyrinth was critically acclaimed, winning Oscars and a Hugo. His horror film The Devil’s Backbone, also in Spanish, garnered similar laurels. Even his Hellboy super hero films were met with favorable reviews. The other difference between a sandbox monster throw down and this film? A nearly $200 million budget. Drawing obvious influences from Japanese monster movies like Godzilla, or Gojira if you want to be technical, and anime like Robotech, Del Toro and his co-writer Travis Beacham have crafted a believable and detailed futuristic dystopia. The monsters, or Kaiju, have forced the inhabitants of Pacific coastal cities in Asia, Australia and the Americas to retreat behind giant walls. There’s a lucrative black market for Kaiju body parts thought to have medicinal properties. The monsters are even categorized like hurricanes, making them seem like forces of nature. But the story is not just a gigantic, city-leveling exercise in computer graphics. The filmmakers have a story to tell about people coming together to fight for a better future. That’s why the Jaegers must have two pilots to control them. In the story, there is some techno-babble about the neural strain of operating such a complex machine being too much for one person to handle. Therefore, the brains of the two pilots are linked by something called the Drift. The two minds become one and they share each other’s thoughts. Two heads are better than one. The real narrative reason for this construct is to bring the characters together and to make the loss of one partner all the more tragic. That’s where Raleigh Becket enters the story. He is a former pilot of a Jaeger called Gipsy Danger. Raleigh knows too well what it’s like to lose a partner. He has literally and figuratively retreated behind one of those coastal walls. As the worldwide Kaiju dilemma worsens, Raleigh is asked to return to duty and take on a new co-pilot. It is a microcosm of the bigger story. Hoping to earn the job as Raleigh’s new comrade at arms is Mako Mori. She has her own history involving the invading monsters. Raleigh meets the last remaining Jaeger crews. Father and son Aussies Hercules and Chuck Hansen pilot a robot called Striker Eureka. Russian siblings Aleksis and Sasha Kaidanovsky pilot the Cherno Alpha Jaeger. And triplets from China will control the Crimson Typhoon. The movie goes into detail about how two pilots work together. Sadly, the triplet situation is never explored. No military themed story would be complete without the wise and stern leader. Here, the role is filled by Marshall Stacker Pentecost. Besides having the best name in the movie, he delivers the inspirational line “Today, we are canceling the Apocalypse!” This quote will no doubt be quoted and spoofed for decades. Not all the characters are brave monster fighters. Doctors Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb head up the scientific research division. Besides being the film’s main comic relief, these bickering brainiacs hope to find a solution to the Kaiju crisis beyond conventional military force. Add underworld Kaiju body parts dealer Hannibal Chau to the mix and Pacific Rim has more colorful characters than 3 Godzilla films. Del Toro and his design crew have decorated this film with so much detail that it begs for a slow motion viewing of the inevitable Blu-ray. Scenes in a Hong Kong marketplace are bursting with color and texture. Somehow the effects artists have imbued both the metal and organic behemoths with real size and weight and motion. The action in Pacific Rim is shot with greater clarity than in the similar Transformers films. With Transformers, the audience never knows who is who and what’s happening. It’s all a giant swirling metal mass of mayhem. In this film, the camera never loses track of what’s happening. Besides, all the good guys are robots and all the bad guys are creatures. Besides its Asian influences, Pacific Rim borrows liberally from American action blockbusters. Top Gun? Check. Star Wars, Independence Day and Armageddon? Check, check and check. But who cares? This movie is a gigantic load of good fun. And it definitely has a very high “Oh, that’s so cool!” factor. Anyone who ever stomped around pretending to be Godzilla or dreams of a world where nations pull together to solve a problem will want to check out Pacific Rim.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 03:59:02 +0000