★★★½
There will not be a more adrenaline pumping motion picture
to come out this summer than “Pacific Rim”. Its been a very long time since a
movie has come out in the theaters during the summer months that’s been as much
fun as this film. Despite minor flaws - that might actually be by design from
the filmmakers – “Pacific Rim” is summer movie magic at its absolute best.
Not too far into the future, humanity is waging war with
giant monsters that come from the sea known as the Kaiju. The Kaiju rise up
from a portal from another world found deep in the sea and lay waste to the
major cities on Pacific Ocean coastlines (San Francisco, Hong Kong, Sydney, etc.).
To defeat these beasts, man has built giant robotic war machines called
Jaegers. The Jaegers are piloted by two people joined together through a
neurological bond; they think and act as one by sharing each other’s memories
and experiences.
Our hero is Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) who is a Jaeger
pilot along with his brother Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff). When battling a
particularly vicious Kaiju, Yancy is tragically killed leaving Raleigh to pilot
the Jaeger himself, but this will be his final mission. He’s too broken up
about the loss of his brother to continue with the program.
Five years pass and Becket is no longer a Jaeger pilot. He’s
working on a coastal wall that’s supposed to keep the Kaiju away. The Jaeger
Program is being shut down. Its been reassigned to Hong Kong where it will keep
up defenses until the wall is complete. Becket’s former commander, Marshall
Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), shows up and recruits Becket to come back for
one final mission. They think they have a plan to stop the Kaiju once and for
all and they’re running out of time to pull it off.
Once in Hong Kong, Becket meets Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi)
who is tasked with helping him find his new co-pilot. She too has a tragic
history involving the Kaiju, much like Beckett losing his brother. He also
meets two doctors, Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Dr. Gottlieb (Burn
Gorman), who are researching the Kajiu and provide the bulk of the film’s comic
relief.
There is much to pick apart in “Pacific Rim”, but I don’t
really want to because this movie is so much fun. I can’t remember the last
time I went to the theater and had as much fun watching a film as I did
“Pacific Rim”. Its truly a reminder of what the summer movie season used to be.
Think back long ago to the big studio tent pole movies that
opened in the summer. They were fun, enjoyable, humorous and exciting. Very
rarely do we see such films like that now. Now they’re just dark and lack even
the slightest bit of humor. Movies that fit this bill could be the recent “Man
of Steel” or the “Dark Knight” Trilogy. I’m not saying these films are bad, but
they don’t bring out the kid in you when you watch them.
“Pacific Rim” does! It reminds me of the summer movies when
you were carried away by the spectacle of the film and not on creating
something so dark and mysterious. I’m reminded of films like “Jurassic Park” or
maybe even “Independence Day”. While neither are masterpieces by any stretch,
both movies do give you that sense of wonder and amazement. This is what makes
“Pacific Rim” so great. Its an amazing film that demands you never take your
eyes off the screen. It also demands you see it on the biggest screen you
possibly can.
Director Guillermo del Toro wanted to make a film that felt
like the summer movies of old, and that is what he’s accomplished. Having
previously done one of the greatest films of the last decade, “Pan’s
Labyrinth”, de Toro has proven himself to be a visionary master. The scale of
“Pacific Rim” is enormous and he has been extremely successful in pulling this
off. Every frame of this film is amazing to see.
“Pacific Rim” isn’t without its faults. The story itself is solid
with several decent subplots that tie everything together nicely. The
screenplay itself, however, is littered with typical action film clichés. From the
first minute all the way to the final frame, you can practically see every plot
point coming before it arrives. Its predictability puts a damper on some of the
epic battle sequences and tense moments because we know what’s coming before it
happens. Not to mention, there are also numerous moments of coincidence that
help get the plot out of a jam. It’s just lazy writing and it insults the
intelligence of the audience.
It also suffers from poor dialogue. Its borderline “Star
Wars”-prequel bad. There are many moments where you just have to shake you head
at the disbelief that another human could ever say something so cheesy. Additionally,
the heartfelt dialogue meant to pull on your emotions is overacted and far too
melodramatic. Its laughable at times. There’s plenty of comic relief built in,
but I don’t think these were supposed to be the comical parts.
But couldn’t all that cheesy dialogue and all the plot
coincidences be by design? Del Toro has made a movie that pays a lot of homage
to the old monster movies of his childhood. The old “Godzilla” movies are very
cheesy in their own right, but they’re very fun to watch. If that’s the case,
then it really doesn’t matter what faults “Pacific Rim” has. It’s been a long
time since we’ve seen a summer film show us how much fun can be had at the
movies. Poor acting and bad dialogue aside, “Pacific Rim” is the blockbuster
event of the summer. An original story that’s full of the same thrills and
excitement we haven’t seen in a summer film in many years.
