Mechs and Monsters: Pacific Rim Review

The need to see this movie...to believe this movie would be all that I hoped for in a movie...was planted early in my early in my childhood.  I have always had a knack to recall memories from when I was very young, and one of the earliest ones was when I was about 5 years old.  I picking out Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla along with Godzilla vs the Smog Monster from the local video store.  The movies were to distract me long enough for my parents to do their taxes.  I think that was my first memory of mechs vs monsters and it filled me with quite a bit of awe at the time.

Fast forward 25 years later, and I think I was still waiting for a the entertainment world to instill that same awe with another mechs vs monsters.  While there have been some valiant efforts, I still felt that it had not been done right just yet...until I heard about Pacific Rim.  With Guillermo del Toro leading the charge, I had a large amount of hope.  Then I saw the cast.  Was this to be not only one of the best movies of the summer as well as doing justice to the mechs vs monsters genre?

In short: Yes!  While there are some minor issues I had with the film, overall it was a grand success.  This is a return to what summer blockbusters were meant to be!

The main reason for seeing this movie is watching large the mechs, Jaegers (German for hunter) versus the monsters, Kaiju (Japanese for strange creature/giant monster).  The film delivers 3-4 actual battles not including some flashbacks and TV news reports.  They occur out in the ocean, in major cities, in the air/space, and even underwater.    Each fight had impact, and not just within in the story.  You could feel the weight of the flurry of attacks between the Jaegers and Kaiju.  There are even a few human vs human scuffles thrown into the mix.

The story and performances were entertaining.  As long as you didn't take the story too seriously and treat it like a proper summer blockbuster.  The logic, for a sci-fi fantasy film, is played pretty straight with some comedy thrown it to keep it from getting too serious.  There is nothing new story wised added to the genre, but the story is well thought out and mostly complete.  Most of my issues with the story were all pretty minor and never really took up much screen time which is devoted to the fights and the large cast of main and support characters.  Again, don't spend too much time thinking about and just enjoy the show!

Out of the main cast, Idris Elba commands all the scenes he shows up in as the military man turned "rebel" leader of the Kaiju resistance force.  He plays well against Charlie Hunnam troubled Jaeger pilot, who does a serviceable job here.  It was kind of distracting seeming him all cleaned up as I kept wanting to see him as Jax the Jaeger pilot. His Jaeger co-pilot/love interest is played by the beautiful Rinko Kikuchi.  It is always nice to see a strong female who isn't overly sexed up and played for eye candy.  Given a troubled past and amazing Jaeger skill and knowledge, she more than holds her own against her male counterparts.  The rest of the cast is well rounded with Charlie Day, Ron Pearlman, and Burn Gorman.

My main issue with the film is that I wanted more.  I wanted more time with some of the Jaegers and their pilots to see them show their true skill before falling to the Kaiju.  It would have be cool to see more about the training of how to be Jaeger pilots, but I could see that taking time away from the fight sequences.   I would have liked to see a little more from a number of the actors as well.  With such an ensemble of a cast, some do not get enough screen time or dialogue.  This is a good kind of criticism though...wanting to spend more time in a world that the cast and crew help build.

My other issue is purely genre fan questioning and speculation.  Debating fight techniques, why they waited so long to use special weapons, etc.  This kept my friends and I discussing the film well after we exited the theatre.  Another good sign.

The last issue is more of a personal with the story.  Yes, I know I said not to take it too seriously, but some of the story tropes I felt were not needed.  We didn't need the little bickering between Hunnam and one of the Aussie pilots, but again it was handled pretty quickly.  I wish I felt the loss more of Hunnam's brother in the opening as well as the loss of the two briefly mentioned/shown Jaegers and their pilots.

Overall, I really enjoyed the ride and encourage everyone to see this movie in the theatres.  I think the scope of the Jaegers and Kaiju will not translate as well on your home TV screens.

The above artwork is by Kevin Tong, and was one of the amazing posters sold by Mondo at Comic Con.