Holy Buckets, but this one was
a lot better than I expected. Given that
movie making these days seems to have been reduced to choreographing action sequences
(see Star Trek) and allowing for the fact that belongs to that general category
of movies in which giant monsters battle giant robots, it’s hard not to award Pacific Rim five out of five stars. It does a superb job of almost everything
that can be expected of such a film.
Story
The earth is invaded by giant
reptiles (Kaiju), which enter our world through a dimensional rift on the ocean
floor. Mankind responds by pulling together
and building giant, humanoid robots (Jaegers).
Each Jaeger is controlled by two pilots ( or in one case, a set of
triplets) who are mentally linked with the machine and with each other. After seven years of war, the tide turns
against mankind as the Kaiju increase in power and numbers faster than human
industry can respond. A former Jaeger
pilot is brought out of retirement to command one of the few remaining machines
in a last ditch effort to close dimensional portal.
Acting/Casting
Charlie Hunnam (Jax Teller on Sons of Anarchy) has the lead role as
our returning pilot. Emotionally wounded
but not weakened by the death of his brother/partner early in the war, Raleigh
Becket is now paired with Mako Mori (played by Rinko Kikuchi). Mori carries a heavier set of emotional
baggage, having lost her family to a Kaiju attach when she was a child.
The pairing of pilots is a
clever device for keeping relationships neatly sorted. In addition we get a father/son pair, a Slavic
husband and wife team, and the Chinese triplets, in diminishing degrees of
exposure. We also get a pair of deliciously
quirky tech nerds (actors Charlie Day and Burn Gorman).
Finally, Idris Elba gives us Stacker
Pentecost, the fiery commander. If you
haven’t heard him declare “Today, we are
cancelling the apocalypse” you haven’t been listening.
All the actors are very well
cast, physically and temperamentally.
Plot/Dialogue/Mood
The storyline is boilerplate
fantasy/sci-fi. Hopelessly outgunned,
our heroes must overcome inner demons and mutual mistrust in order to pull off a
more or less miraculous stratagem. Think
here of Independence Day, The Lord of the Rings, and The Avengers. The dialogue is a bit better than you would
expect, if not the least bit inventive.
The pacing and mood, however, are
very good. I found that the sense of
desperation was very convincing and built steadily throughout the film. This owed a lot to the role played by the two
tech nerds, who argue incessantly about what is going on and what will happen
next. Of course, they both turn out to
be right.
The real test of this kind of
movie is whether it can rekindle some of the same excitement I felt when I was
six years old and saw Godzilla for
the first time. It did that.
Visual Effects/Sound
The special effects were
flawless and spectacular. I doubt
whether anything as large as a Jaeger or a Kaiju has ever been thrown into the
air on planet earth, let alone the one punch the other out. The laws of Hollywood physics were
scrupulously observed, so the action felt plausible without being fitted out
for any thinking. Along with the sound
and the texture of water and fire, everything seemed to be suitably heavy. I am happy to report that there was not a
hint of offensive, Peter Jackson goofiness in the action.
The interiors of the Jaeger
fortress had an iron retro look, a bit like the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
(1954). Pretty much everything else,
including the inside and outside of the machines, the streets of Hong Kong, and
the monsters was glowing with red and blue pastel fire. It was visually delightful, due in part to
the fact that the power never went out even when flying giants were scraping
the architecture off of whole city blocks.
An Odd Note (small spoiler alert)
There were a lot of rather blunt
references to Independence Day (1996). We learn a lot about the enemy when one of
the scientists mentally interfaces with an alien brain. For instance, the creatures responsible for
sending the Kaiju here are in the habit of plundering whole worlds. Those same aliens look rather a lot like the
critters that Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum waved at from their hijacked
spacecraft. I will stop there, but there
is a lot more. This borrowing is so
blatant that is must mean something. I
have no clue, unless it was just lazy theft.
Summary
There is almost nothing new or
surprising here, so I can’t quite give it five stars. It is certainly four star popcorn fun. Box office returns seem a bit anemic, which
is probably due to the fact that there is so much apocalyptic banging going on
in summer theaters that audiences are just worn out with it. It is also possible that the idea of giant
robots sounds too Might Morphin’ Power Rangers.
I note that the Jaeger pilots are called rangers. That is too bad, because this is the sort of
thing you will really like if you like that sort of thing. I do.
