Pacific Rim is monstrously good summer fun
Pacific Rim is the perfect summer popcorn extravaganza nerdy entertainment of the highest order. Okay there are a couple of demerits – the pace occasionally lags and the film feels a little underexplored despite its two-hour running time. Minor things compared to the overall spectacle of director Guillermo del Toro’s latest fantasy a delirious mash-up of anime Godzilla H.P. Lovecraft and dozens of other sci-fi flicks.
The film opens with a quick prologue laying out the basic skeleton of the plot in a few minutes. At some time in the near future a rift opens up deep in the Pacific Ocean creating a portal to another world. Before you can say “Gamera” the first monster appears. They’re giant Cthulhu-looking beasties (dubbed “Kaiju”) that begin terrorizing citizens razing cities and generally making themselves unwelcome. Fearing the end of civilization Earth’s nations unite to fight the monsters. Their solution: giant robots. The Jaegers as they’re called are humongous weaponized machines operated by two pilots. The pilots work in tandem (called “drifting” in the film) by hooking their brains together a neat bit of movie jibber-jabber that makes characterization much easier.
Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) is a Jaeger pilot one of the best who lives for killing all manner of Kaiju with his brother (co-pilot) in tow. After his brother is killed in battle Raleigh does the obligatory “I’m done with this gig and am going to wander alone in contemplative solitude” thing before making the equally obligatory return to robot duty a few minutes later. The world has decided that Jaegers are passé kaput so it is putting all of its effort into building a giant globe-spanning protective wall. Unfortunately the Kaiju are stepping it up and the Jaeger team realizes that humankind is about to make its last stand willing or otherwise.
The film then goes into action overdrive with a series of robot-crunching monster-bashing sequences. (This one deserves to be seen in IMAX 3D.) Del Toro films the monsters like the unknowable nightmares they are with the camera catching glimpses of them from the ground as they tower into the mist. The Jaegers are a disparate bunch some slicker and Cylon-like others like clunky tin cans. It’s a testament to the animators and Del Toro’ s careful eye that the battles don’t turn into an endless series of messy digital symphonies. Additionally the 3D is clean and sharp obviously shot to take advantage of the technology. It’s one of the best 3D presentations I’ve seen yet.
Del Toro’s love of this material is palpable with endless shout-outs to Akira Aliens Robot Jox Godzilla flicks and even his own Hellboy films. (Need more? There’s even a Chinatown reference in there.) He channels most of this nerdy joy into Newton (Charlie Day) a biologist who also happens to be the biggest Kaiju fanboy on Earth. (Like a Pokemon player writ large.) Newton spends the film working on his hypothesis that the same technology used for connecting two human minds could be used for linking up with a Kaiju. This leads to a digressive subplot where he tries to hunt down a Kaiju brain in the black markets of Hong Kong run by the sinister Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman). Also along for the ride are Idris Elba who does a serviceable job as the steely General-of-sorts in charge of the Jaeger operation and a somewhat wooden Rinko Kikuchi as Raleigh’s new co-pilot.
What might be the most impressive thing? Pacific Rim is rated PG (it’s giant robots fighting giant space aliens after all) and loses nothing in the way of content or suspense. It’s for everyone. Del Toro has made a big-budget big-thrills summer movie that is easily the best giant monsters and robots movie ever made.
