Review: Pacific Rim
Pacific Rim is a rare beast of a film. A film that doesn’t have a message or a theme while also not pandering or pathetic. No Pacific Rim exists purely as a good time, a film designed to entertain you in the biggest way possible. And it does it’s job in fuckin spades, Pacific Rim joins the ranks of Jaws, Jurassic Park and The Avengers as the best Summer has to offer, it’s an incredible spectacle and worth every once of your attention.
The plot to Pacific Rim might be a little too familiar but it sets things up as monsters VS robots and that was all we needed, however with Del Toro’s master touch he added a little more to it than what you first think of. Set in the near future, a dimensional portal beneath the Pacific opens a gateway, allowing skyscrapers size monsters known as Kaiju to start coming through and fucking shit up. When Humanity runs and hide the entire world puts aside their differences and work together to create Jaegers, two-manned robots, gigantic enough and powerful enough to fight back. And for a while they do, the Jaegers manage to fight the good fight long enough for humanity to return to normal and even start cashing in on the Kaiju brand.
However things don’t stay that way and the longer the fight goes on, more and more it becomes obvious that the Kaiju are adapting, the Jaegers start losing and the Kaiju get more powerful each time they come through until, just when the Jaeger programme is shut down as being ineffective, the once army of robots is reduced to just four. Not wanting to give up just yet, Marshall Stacker recruit’s the last of the military and sets out on one final push to defeat the Kaiju once and for all.
From there you can figure out your own way to the end with some plot reveals tripping you up from time to time, it’s a good plot, a little too familiar but it goes beyond what could’ve easily been just Robots VS Monsters and it works out for the better.
Most of the characters were good, I’ve heard people complain that the characters weren’t too inspired and I agree with them to an extent but for the most part I liked the people involved and they held my interest. You got some great supporting performances from Charlie Day as Newton, a Kaiju researcher who doesn’t always think before he acts, and Ron Pearlman and Hannibal Chau, a black market dealer and perfect asshole for the film.
In the lead role Jax Teller plays Raleigh, once one of the best Jaeger pilots ever, he fell out of the programme following the death of his brother, since the two of them were linked during the Kaiju attack his brother’s memories and feelings during his death are still with him and make him dangerous to link with inside the Jaeger.
I’ll clarify since I didn’t bring it up earlier. To pilot the Jaeger, the two pilots have to link together, two halves of the one brain, the stronger the connection between the pilots, the better figthers they are. I’ll go into more detail in a moment but it’s a really strong idea for the film.
If I’m honest I’d have to say Hunnam (to give him his real name) is the weak link in the cast, he wasn’t bad but I never fully felt the impact his brother’s death had on him, yeah I caught glimpses of it but nothing truly game-changing. That being side he was still a good lead and his unpredictable nature made for a good watch.
Raliegh’s co-pilot Mako, played by Rinko Kikuchi, was a lot better, she had her own baggage which was more dangerous inside the link and more sympathetic to her character, she was the best and brightest in the class and more than capable for the Jaegers but that emotional weight she has with her holds her back. I liked Mako, she was a truly sympathetic character and likeable to hell, her mix of can-do spirit and respect for her superiors showed her as a well-developed character.
But far and away this film belonged to one man. Idris Elba as Marshall Stacker, the dude owns this film, this is the type of role I’ve been waiting for Idris to have since Stringer Bell. He is a take no prisoners, hard decision making bad-ass who makes it clear he doesn’t want your respect or admiration, he just wants your obedience. However he’s not without his own humanity, his fatherly relationship with Mako causes him to make decisions that he believes are in her interest when they actually hold her back, he cares a great deal for her and doesn’t want to see her hurt. Stacker is easily the man of the hour in this film and a contender for coolest character of the year.
However the true star of this film is Del Toro, the man is a legend and it shows once more with this. Del Toro’s love for monster movies of old like King Kong or Godzilla make him the perfect man for the job when it comes to creating this world. And that’s one of the most impressive things Del Toro does, he builds up this world that has been at war with the Kaiju for 13 years and makes it clear that in that time people have adapted to their presence, the use of Kaiju bodies being used on the black market, entire streets built out of their bones, toys and TV shows using them as a brand, it all helps this world to be created in our minds and that helps it to no end.
But it’s clear what we’re all here for. The fighting. And good fuckin god does Del Toro knock this out the fuckin park. Aside from having some of the best CGI I’ve ever seen, ever, along with every monster and every Jaeger having their own unique design and features, the battles in this film are downright perfect, they are everything I wanted and more. Exciting, thrilling, hard-hitting, cool as fuck, a fight in the middle of the film that involved four Jaegers and two of the biggest Kaiju to date lasted what felt like half and hour, but it lasted that long in the best way, I never wanted it to end, the destruction, the crunching of bones, the slamming, the crushing. Everything about it was so goddamn perfectly constructed and put together.
What really impressed me about the fights was how much they felt like actual fights, the robots and the monsters both behaved like they were just laying into each other, throwing dirty punch after dirty punch, grabbing any weapon they could to get the other guy to stay down. For things the size of skyscrapers the choreography of the fighting was spectacular, Del Toro obviously knew what he was doing.
Overall, what more can I say other than go see this fuckin movie, you will not regret it, it’s one of the best movies of the year, probably the most exciting, it is pure unadulterated fun and worth every penny. Go see it now.
9/10