Escape to the Movies: Pacific Rim

[scorptatious]

So I just got back from this movie.

HOLYSHITTHISISFUCKINGAWESOMEOMYGODHESLICEDTHATGUYSINHALFINMIDAIROHMYGOD!!!

This movie touched my inner child, and I liked it.

...

Maybe I should rephrase thaFUCKITTHATWASAWESOME.

 

[John the Gamer]

Watching it felt like a Supreme Commander meets Starcraft movie, which is totally fine with me. Totally great movie, and ironically I'd really appreciate some sequels to this.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

also, may i point out that Del Toro HIMSELF SAID HE HAS NEVER SEEN EVANGELION!!!

I suspect his co-writer probably has. The film itself is a love letter the two genres as a whole, but do not think for one minute it is an accident that the highlights in Mako's hair are blue.

 

[Tormuse]

First off, I want to say that I saw this movie last week and my face still hurts from facepalming at the scene where...

Spoiler: a character does a dumb thing

they pull out a sword, toward the end, and start cutting up the Kaiju with one hit each and I'm like, "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY PULL OUT THE SWORD SOONER?!?" They spent the whole damn movie up to that point punching Kaiju in the face over and over and over again (and over) and the whole time this was going on, I was thinking to myself, "Okay, punching them in the face obviously isn't effective, like, at all... what they need is an edged weapon..." so when it turned out that they had a sword all along, and they just didn't use it because... um... because why? I don't know why... words fail me... hand meet face... (Now I know how the Kaiju feel; Hmm... now that I think about it, maybe that was their secret strategy! All the Kaiju will facepalm themselves to death!) Seriously, though, it really is stupid that they would do anything other than use every weapon at their disposal when you consider that: 1) These robots are incredibly difficult to build and cost billions of dollars each so it really is best to kill the Kaiju fast before they can do any damage, especially since... 2) The Jaeger program is being scrapped and so these things are completely irreplaceable! 3) Millions, if not billions, of lives are at stake; are you really going to mess around, punching things in the face when you have a frikkin' sword you could use instead? 4) perhaps most importantly, swords are just cooler. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KatanasAreJustBetter] (And it stands to reason that a giant sword would be... er... gigantically cooler!)

That was the one moment that took me right out of the movie for the sheer stupidity. Other than that, it was a lot of fun, as long as you can look past the ridiculous implausibility of the setup that allows for a premise of giant robots fighting giant monsters.

 

[flatten_the_skyline]

Bob, since this is the second time in a few days that I've been heavily disappointed by your recommendations (the other was InTime) I have to speak out. Okay, should I have the urge to see giant monsters getting punched in the face by mechs before I consider this urge offically scratched, but that's about it.

So we have another straight male guy saving the world with the only notable female character obviously being so dumb that he has to yell commands at her even while their brains are connected. And even though she totally kicked his ass in martial arts 5 minutes before he totally has to protect her from those mean bullies in the hallway. While this movie might not be a sequel, it is sill just a copy of a copy of something from a time when studios didn't have such nice cgi. I can't recall anything in the plot that was not completely predictable, and even though I sat in the cinema like 14 hours ago my memories are fading fast. The chemistry between the main character hwhose name I already forgot about and his love interest whose name I only remember because of final fantasy VII was comparable to the physics of the action sequences and I fell asleep during the last fight, but by what my friends told me I didn't miss much.

So let's say I cannot actually see why seeing this movie should have such a high priority, but as far as I remember my verdict on InTime was even worse (nice aesthetic, godd idea, horrible plot, and running for your life for days in high heels, giving away millions of years only to keep minutes for yourself?)

 

[webkilla]

Finally got to watch the movie last night (darn late european releases)

Yes its a 'simple' popcorn flick - but it is a damn good one at that.

The way that the mind-meld thingy drives the plot is quite smart, and as a - if not fan, then at least someone who appreciates what things like Gundam and Evangelion has done to shape movie and animation tropes - then I love how the movie incorporated these homage-like elements into itself

Heck, I'm kinda wondering how a 'angel-profiteer' would look in the Evangelion universe now

 

[dystopiaINC]

Do they say in the movie why we need giant mech's as to just using tanks and air strikes on these things? Don't get me wrong, I'm still gonna see it, just wondering about that.

Well, glad to see that it didn't suck and now I can see it this weekend.

Would have loved to the see the UK make a Warhammer 40K style mech for the movie but oh well.

Um yeas actually...

Spoiler

I guess the first landings took several DAYS (i think it was like 6 days) to kill with conventional warfare tactics, IE tanks and jets, and it wiped out whole cities in the process and that was the first one, it got worse.

 

[Ashesinmind]

Just one criticism: As much as I love that Australia is represented so much, in such a big movie, the Australian accents were a little dodgy, albeit the best attempt at I've ever seen at replicating the accent, you could tell they weren't real and it was a little distracting. Nest time get real Australians. That goes for every filmmaker.

Apart from that the movie was nerd-gasmic from start to finish. Bring on the next one Guillermo.

 

[Jegsimmons]

also, may i point out that Del Toro HIMSELF SAID HE HAS NEVER SEEN EVANGELION!!!

I suspect his co-writer probably has. The film itself is a love letter the two genres as a whole, but do not think for one minute it is an accident that the highlights in Mako's hair are blue.

yes, because blue hair is really hard to find in anime.

 

[Korsgaard]

I'm certainly with Movie Bob and a lot of the others here - this movie was absolutely incredible! While it tread a lot of familiar ground, it did so with such gusto and bombast, to say nothing of sheer spectacle, that one cannot help but have a glorious time watching this movie. It's like I told my friends - you haven't truly lived until you've seen a dual-pilot gundam stand-in clobber a trans-dimensional Lovecraftian hell beast with a rocket-propelled punch in the middle of Hong Kong harbor in three-dimensions.

Plus, the fact I actually get to use that sentence to describe a movie puts a big old grin on my face. It's going to be a hard act to follow for any movie this year.

 

[Gelatart]

In all honesty, even though my opinion on this movie has changed for the better, I still think that it's a bit overrated. It is simple fun and all, but it's a bit clumsy and the characters aren't as 3D as he claims, and honestly, going in , I was hoping for MORE fights and battles. What we get is an intro fight that just serves as prologue, a few flashback fights which don't really count, and then one big fight and an immediate attempt to get to the climax. It honestly feels like the first episode of a TV series stretched out and then given a conclusion. So I think the pacing is really, unfortunately, not very good, which hurt the weight of the battles for me. I wanted more, not just "oh look two kaiju are here" and then already we're preparing to get rid of them. Just my two cents. I think this movie is fun and all, but people haven't been pointing out its flaws enough.

Now I do have to say my problems wouldn't be as big if this were a series, and it's mainly that it's a standalone that I have issues with it, especially the fact that the ending seems to suggest all their issues have already been fixed. This could make for an interesting franchise if they find some way to convincingly continue it. But for now, it still disappoints me a little.