Escape to the Movies: Pacific Rim

[Flunk]

I actually saw an Anime series that used the same two pilots with linked minds are required to pilot the mech idea. It's called Gigantic Formula (it's not that good, don't all go out and watch it). I wonder if the creators of this movie saw that show or if they came up with the idea individually. Heck, maybe it's in a lot of anime that I just haven't seen.

 

[Jegsimmons]

Its the only movie out right now and its only competition is grown ups 2 and is getting universal praise....box office flop my ass.

There's The Lone Ranger, Man of Steel, The Heat, This is the End, Monsters University and World War Z still out in cinemas over here too. I am just predicting that Pacific Rim will be mostly forgotten. I saw it on launch day and there were only like 30 people in the cinema. I may be wrong but it just feels like it's going to end up a cult movie to me.

That's not a bad thing, some of my favourite movies ever are cult movies (Starship Troopers is near-perfect to me) and even if it does flop at the box office (or make very little profit) it will probably go very well in DVD/Blu-Ray sales much like Dredd (2012) did!

Lone ranger is a bomb
Man of steel has peaked
No one is watching this is the end or heat
Monsters has peaked
WWZ has peaked
Pacific Rim has little to no competition in terms of summer blockbusters

And Dredd suffered from having a bad movie related to it (the 95 version)
and star ship troopers wasn't a bomb, it made its money back plus a little...it wasnt a big hit, but it was big enough to get two sequels.

Pacific Rim is making a killing. 22 million before saturday on a thursday night release is actually pretty damn good.

 

[romxxii]

I actually saw an Anime series that used the same two pilots with linked minds are required to pilot the mech idea. It's called Gigantic Formula (it's not that good, don't all go out and watch it). I wonder if the creators of this movie saw that show or if they came up with the idea individually. Heck, maybe it's in a lot of anime that I just haven't seen.

Gurren Lagann also uses the two-pilots trope, except instead of linked minds, they sync up their "spiral energy". Basically, the mecha responds to their temperament.

Pacific Rim draws on a lot of giant mecha and kaiju tropes. I like to think of it as a love letter to every single giant robot anime ever.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

The robots fighting monsters part of the movies was done amazingly, and that's ultimately the most important thing here, but I flat out disagree with what Bob says about this movie having "fleshed out 3 dimensional characters." The main cast and the main character in particular were especially bland, and ironically the secondary characters, namely Charlie Day's high strung punk-nerd scientist character had the most personality.

Also I'm surprised he brought up the whole "dealing with psychological baggage to punch monsters in the face" thing like it had any sort of presence. It came up once to present itself as a problem, and then was never seen again without ever being resolved. If you haven't seen it yet don't let this review color your expectations. Overall it's a fun action flick with really cool visuals but you won't see anything uniquely interesting or creative plot or character wise.

 

[Jegsimmons]

The Guillermo del Toro equasion for Summer Blockbuster epicness:

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Shinji + Idris Elba + Ron Pearlman^2 = TOTAL EPICNESS

I wish people would stop making comparisons with Eva...this is a GOOD film, not 17 hours and some change of annoying people i hope the monsters kill.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

I saw it the 10:10 showing last night. If I can convince even just one other friend to go, I will see it again. hell I might just say hang it and go see it again even if I have to go by myself. I had a ****ing blast at this.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Pretty much just came back from watching it and damn does it kick ass. The fights are spectacular, the characters are fairly likeable, if a bit bland, the 3D was surprisingly good, the jaegers and kaiju look fantastic and the whole film reeked of blood, sweat and tears. I've seen so few films recently with actual heart and passion about them, where you can just tell everyone involved loved this thing like a child.

The only things that disappointed me were how few showings there were and how few people were actually in the cinema. Unfortunately, it hasn't been all that heavily advertised in UK. Most people I know who know about it know about it because I wouldn't shut the hell up about how awesome it looked. It would be a crying shame if this doesn't at least break even. I want more films like this.

 

[Aikayai]

Haven't seen an action sci-fi this good since Dredd. If you've not seen this movie, you have to see this movie. Forget waiting for a Blu-Ray release, you need to see this at the cinema. Its a great experience.

 

[Giest4life]

Carefull Bob. Your fanboy is showing.

But, really, I'm gathering some deadbeat mates to go with me tomorrow.

 

[Coreless]

Mako had way more baggage to be resolved through punching Kaiju in the face and the third act was far more transformative and empowering for her than for Raleigh.

Like I say always say to people "never underestimate the power of a good ass whooping" it really can do wonders.

 

[keitarobg]

so it's basically Evangelion?

 

[immortalfrieza]

I think what makes Pacific Rim better than similar Giant Robot movies like say Transformers is that they stuck to the original point. When they walk in to see Pacific Rim what the audience is expecting to see is just Giant Robots fighting Giant Monsters for most of the about 2 and a half hours of it's runtime, not about 2 hours of of exposition and character building and 30 minutes of Giant Robots fighting Giant Monsters, and Pacific Rim gives them exactly what they expect. On the same token, when people walk into Transformers even longtime fans of the franchise expect to see Giant Robots fighting each other for most of 2 hours and very little of it to be exposition and character building, and that's exactly what the audience DOESN'T get. Instead what the audience gets is a bunch of humans and giant robots whining about their war and personal problems most of the movie and exposition galore, and comparatively very little Giant Robot fighting. It doesn't help that what exposition and character building Transformers has isn't particularly good anyway.

In short, Pacific Rim gives the audience exactly what they want to see, while Transformers gives them pretty much the exact opposite.

Sounds interesting, may go and see it if I get the chance. Also another week, another rip on the Amazing Spiderman, seriously Bob, it's been a year already, let it go

Exactly. Bob has the right to his opinion and while I respect that, in mine that opinion has never been right, so I never liked to hear him ripping it to shreds the first time around. Even if ASM truly was objectively a terrible movie to pretty much everybody, hearing him continue to rip on it at every available opportunity for a year straight would still be very annoying, and it's even more grating since it's not.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Just came back home from the movie a few hours ago and it blew me away. The story was clishee but was expecting that as well.

What I didn't expect were awesome fight scenes between mechs and monsters that I've seen on the silver screen (don't count anime's here) that blew me away.

Now with that said the last thing I want to say is: GO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW! Your inner 12yo will love it.

 

[Yuuki]

Another few gripes with the movie, firstly the candidate selection process and how secondly how Mako being thrown into the plot felt rather forced.

So the selection process involves Raleigh fighting people with STICKS to see how compatible they are with the pilot - not working with them but literally fighting against them. Can someone explain to me how that makes any sense?
I'd have thought the ideal matches would've been found by putting both pilots in "Jaegar simulators" (or something), since the whole thing is 90% mental compatibility and synchronization. That would test if their brains could even get past the first drift and then go from there. They could've also avoided the whole fuck-up when Mako nearly blew everyone up with a plasma cannon because the first time they drifted was in a live Jaegar...fully activated, fully operational, fully armed. That whole scene seemed completely retarded and really made the audience dislike Mako with that uneasy air of "she shouldn't be here, she isn't ready".

So Mako is introduced, she fights Raleigh with sticks, they trade blows and Raleigh immediately concludes "SHE'S THE ONE!". Literally 30 seconds later he's completely at her side, fully at her defense and later on he literally beat the shit out of Chuck (the aussie guy) who was fully in his right to verbally abuse Mako for almost killing everyone in the hangar with the plasma cannon (which FYI was only averted because Tendo managed to pull the power).
Me, as the viewer, felt Raleigh was being blindly irrational and stupidly white-knightly. The audience has been given no reason to sympathize with Mako, what has she done for Raleigh? Who is she? What is her emotional state, her background? We don't even know! The romance/partnership feels quite forced, as if the directors were thinking "well we have to crowbar this character in somehow since two pilots are required, just do it".

 

[Lazy Kitty]

They were thinking about building bigger walls to hide from giant monsters?

Why does that sound so familiar?

 

[aaronmcc]

In a rare turn of events...I totally disagree. The monster battles were amazing. It delivered on that front in spades. But the rest was terrible.

Hi, I'm Charlie Hunnam. You may know me as Dax Shepherd so for this movie I will be Dax Shepherd. I will even walk with the same swagger and grip my belt just like him. Here is my partner stereotypical Asian girl with Ramona Flowers hair cuz with the end o the word looming we all gotta make sure to get our dyes jobs done to look super badass.

The dialogue was cheesey cheese balls with a side order of cheese. The number times I said 'woah' (Keanu) was almost matched by the number of times I rolled my eyes. Those two scientists were the worst! I'm a big fan of IASIP but these characters were insufferable with their comedic idiocy. I honestly think this film more resembles a Bayformers movie than anything Del Toro has done an I say that with great disappointment.

Despite the battles being 'very cool' I couldn't help but think these allegedly amazing fighters were being a bit redundant. You see that massive tail that keeps owning you? Why don't you grab I and rip it off with your massive super powerful robot arms? No? Oh you would like to be hit with it again? Cool...

/rant

Actually, Ron Perlman's character was even worse than the scientists. Truly dreadful.

 

[Daria.Morgendorffer]

Another few gripes with the movie, firstly the candidate selection process and how secondly how Mako being thrown into the plot felt rather forced.

So the selection process involves Raleigh fighting people with STICKS to see how compatible they are with the pilot - not working with them but literally fighting against them. Can someone explain to me how that makes any sense?
I'd have thought the ideal matches would've been found by putting both pilots in "Jaegar simulators" (or something), since the whole thing is 90% mental compatibility and synchronization. That would test if their brains could even get past the first drift and then go from there. They could've also avoided the whole fuck-up when Mako nearly blew everyone up with a plasma cannon because the first time they drifted was in a live Jaegar...fully activated, fully operational, fully armed. That whole scene seemed completely retarded and really made the audience dislike Mako with that uneasy air of "she shouldn't be here, she isn't ready".

So Mako is introduced, she fights Raleigh with sticks, they trade blows and Raleigh immediately concludes "SHE'S THE ONE!". Literally 30 seconds later he's completely at her side, fully at her defense and acting as if she's his sister (or long-term romantic partner) or something - me, as the viewer, felt he was being irrational and stupidly white-knightly. The audience has been given no reason to sympathize with Mako, what has she done for Raleigh? Who is she? What is her emotional state, her background? We don't even know! The romance/partnership feels quite forced, as if the directors were thinking "well we have to crowbar this character in somehow since two pilots are required, just do it".

Also:

Spoiler

Why did Idris Elba and the Aussie son have to die? If Mako and Raleigh could make it out via escape pods, why couldn't they? I handed that one to Del Toro's flair for "not everyone gets a happy ending because that's not reality", but still, logically they could have all made it back

 

[Paragon Fury]

In Soviet Pacific Rim, boat is on YOU!
That is if you happen to be a Kaiju's face.

Everyone digs giant robots.

Chicks dig giant robots.


Anyways, the movie was amazing. Except for two scenes (anyone who has seen the movie knows which two I'm talking about) that absolutely smack of "executive meddling", the movie is amazing. The soundtrack is absolutely perfect; I don't think there is a way to make it better.

Also, Rukia Kukuchi - er, I mean Rei Ayanami - er, the female lead is permanently emblazoned in the minds of nerds and geeks everywhere. (Seriously though, no matter how many times I hear it said I still hear "Rukia Kukuchi" instead)

 

[Tien Shen]

Spoiler

Why did Idris Elba and the Aussie son have to die? If Mako and Raleigh could make it out via escape pods, why couldn't they? I handed that one to Del Toro's flair for "not everyone gets a happy ending because that's not reality", but still, logically they could have all made it back

Explanation:

Spoiler

Mako and Raleigh ejected and slipped back through the portal to Earth. So the explosion from Gypsy Danger wouldn't have reached them as the portal was collapsed by it. With Idris Elba and the Aussie pilot, they would have been caught in the blast.

 

[gim73]

It was fun to watch, but every single bit of 'science' in this science fiction movie is blatantly WRONG. Star Trek takes liberties and elaborates on current theories for many of their concepts. Pacific Rim doesn't even do that, they take scientific principles known for hundreds of years and state the opposite. If you can turn off the part of your brain that knows things about science, it's a good movie about monsters fighting robots.