Review: Pacific Rim

Plot:  In the near future inter-dimensional monsters called Kaiju have entered our world through a breach under the Pacific ocean.  Their presence results in the destruction of cities and millions of lives lost.  In response, the countries of the world unite together and create the Jaeger program, giant mechanized robots that work in tandem with human pilots bound through a neural link.  But as the onslaught continues, the world has begun to give up on the Jaeger program, looking instead to build giant walls to protect their countries.  In one desperate and final stand Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) gathers a group of Jaeger pilots together for an all out assault on the Kaiju.  One of these pilots includes Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam) a former Jaeger pilot devastated by the loss of his co-pilot and brother Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff) five years before.  Along with his co-pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), whose past also holds similar pain, and the rest of his team, Raleigh must overcome his past and the monsters that seek to destroy the entire world.

Review:   Pacific Rim is bombastic, loud, over the top, filled with cliches, and chock full of explosions and corny dialogue.

And I loved every second of it.

Pacific Rim is  honestly a film that flew under my radar.  I'd seen the previews but really had no interest in seeing it.  Despite being from director Guillermo Del Toro, it looked like a souped up Transformers.  And to be perfectly honest giant monster movies have never been my thing.  Well I'm pleased to say that despite my best efforts to dislike it, the ten year old boy in me couldn't help but love it.

For the life of me I can't understand the people calling Pacific Rim ridiculous and stupid.  IT'S GIANT ROBOTS PUNCHING GIANT MONSTERS PEOPLE!  This isn't Shakespeare and if anyone goes in expecting such you will be extremely disappointed and a moron to boot.

In an era where tent pole summer movies have become dark, brooding, and full of gritty realism, Pacific Rim is a breath of fresh air in that it is just plain fun.  The action sequences are fantastic, especially the penultimate battle in and above Hong Kong.  I'm talking epic--buildings demolished, Kaiju killed with giants swords, Jaeger robots ripped apart....and a gold toothed Ron Pearlman playing a seedy black market Kaiju organ dealer named Hannibal Chau.  In fact the scenes were so amazing that it made the final battle in the Pacific Ocean a slight letdown.  And if I could voice one complaint it would be that many of the scenes were at night so it sometimes made things hard to see.

As I wrote earlier, my initial impression of Pacific Rim was of a watered down pseudo-Transformers.  Boy was I wrong.  Pacific Rim contains what all three Transformers films never had, namely heart...and thankfully a distinct lack of racist robots.  The cast was very strong and while Hunnam's Raleigh Beckett wasn't as good as his performance on "Sons of Anarchy," I still thought he was a strong leading man.  Also Idris Elba made for a great commander in Stacker Pentecost.  (By the way what an awesome name for a character.)  Standoffish, brash, cold and calculating yet somehow fatherly, Elba is everything you'd expect in a science fiction military commander.  Charlie Day also provided the requisite amount of comic relief as Dr. Newton Geisler, a scientist studying the Kaiju.  At times however he was slightly over the top and seemed to be trying too hard.  The real standout of the film however was Rinko Kikuchi as Mako.  She brought a sensitivity and a solemn toughness to the role, and her chemistry with Hunnam was excellent.

While Pacific Rim isn't "this generation's Star Wars" as one critic wrote, it is the quintessential summer popcorn flick.  And a hell of an entertaining ride.

My rating 8/10