Marter to the Movies: Pacific Rim

Marter

Elite Member
Legacy
Oct 27, 2009
14,276
19
43
<color=darkred>Previous Review: <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.823854-Marter-to-the-Movies-2-Guns>2 GunsNext Review: <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.824135-Marter-to-the-Movies-The-Conjuring>The Conjuring
Marter to the Movies
Pacific Rim
http://i34.servimg.com/u/f34/16/09/70/40/poster17.jpg

"Dumb fun" is about the best way that I can describe Pacific Rim. It doesn't have a whole lot of intelligence, and many scenes and lines of dialogue will have you placing your palm on your forehead, but when it comes right down to it, it's a film which is a lot of fun and I'd recommend seeing just for the spectacle of watching $200 million of the very best CGI depicting giant monsters and robots punching each other up.

[Img_Inline width="275" height="180" Caption="" align="left"]http://i34.servimg.com/u/f34/16/09/70/40/clipbo30.jpg[/Img_Inline]

In fact, if I have one complaint about the actual battles between the aforementioned monsters and robots, it's that they often do little more than punch one another. Sometimes there's more to the fighting than that, but it's rare and makes you wonder why, for instance, the Superpowered Sword of Doom wasn't pulled out earlier on. I suppose that goes back to the intelligence of the screenplay. It's true that there are some very interesting concepts included here, but most of them function not to do or say anything of importance, but to attempt to reinvent and hide clichés.

Take the central premise of how the robots are controlled. It's explained to us that they need two operators who must "drift" with one another in order to effectively pilot them. The more effectively they do that -- in which they link their brains and "act as one," so to speak -- the better a fighter they make. That allows the film to directly attribute character dynamics into its action scenes; if the pilots aren't in sync, then that's going to factor into the battles. It's too bad that this doesn't actually wind up being important.

In fact, in a later scene in the movie, when one character who hadn't piloted one of these robots -- called "Jaegers" in the film -- in years decides to suit up, he's asked how he will be able to drift with someone he doesn't know. His answer essentially amounts to "because I can." And then, off they go. But, hey, you're not going to a movie like this one to think, are you? You want to see skyscraper-sized monsters and robots fighting each other, destroying entire cities in their wake. You get that.

[Img_Inline width="275" height="180" Caption="" align="right"]http://i34.servimg.com/u/f34/16/09/70/40/clipbo31.jpg[/Img_Inline]

The story involves alien creatures called the Kaiju emerging from the ocean and destroying our cities. The nations of the world unite and build the aforementioned Jaegers, which are initially successful at beating back the aliens. But they keep coming, and start getting bigger. The decision is made to decommission the Jaeger program, and instead built a wall around the Pacific Ocean, even after we see a similar wall getting destroyed early in the movie. Logic isn't something world leaders can be expected to use, I guess.

A plan is cooked to stop the Kaiju from warping into our dimension. It involves using the remaining Jaegers to deliver a bomb and destroy the passage they use to get here. The main hero is a once-a-hero pilot named Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam), who had his brother killed and his robot destroyed a few years prior. Now he gets brought back into action, teamed with a rookie pilot (actor hidden because of spoilers), and sent to assist in this mission.

Pacific Rim looks gorgeous. Some of the best CGI I've ever seen is in this movie. The Jaegers and Kaiju look about as real as they could. It's a really impressive technical accomplishment. The film is a spectacle, and is something that should be seen first on a very large screen with a strong sound system (read: the cinema). The fantastic score and sound design won't be nearly as impressive on a laptop or wherever you'll watch the DVD. This is the type of summer movie you should actually leave your house to see.

[Img_Inline width="275" height="180" Caption="" align="left"]http://i34.servimg.com/u/f34/16/09/70/40/clipbo32.jpg[/Img_Inline]

The film's director is Guillermo del Toro, a saint among film geeks. You can tell that he loves the material, and that he's not doing this movie just for a paycheck, which might be said about at least one other person who makes movies about giant robots. This movie is a lot more Hellboy than Pan's Labyrinth, meaning that there's not a lot to it on an intellectual level, but like the superhero movie, it's a lot of fun despite this.

You might be surprised not to see a whole lot of stars among the cast list. Names like Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman and Rinko Kikuchi are certainly known, but none of them are box office draws. Presumably this was done for a couple of reasons. The first is to keep the focus on the robots and aliens, while the second is to keep the budget down, allowing for more resources to be spent on the CGI, which is the focus. For what it's worth, Hunnam is really bland, Elba is great, Day is funny and has a manic energy which works well in contrast to the rest of the cast, Perlman is fun but is barely in the film, and Kikuchi reminds us that she needs more movie roles.

I liked Pacific Rim. It was fun. It was also nothing special, save for the gorgeous visuals and fantastic score. The monster fights are fun but not all that inventive, the characters are bland and the lead actor is flat, and there's nothing to intellectually stimulate you, save for finding all of the silly and stupid things found within the screenplay. But, you know what? It's dumb fun, and that's perfectly okay sometimes. This is one of those times.

<color=D6D9DA>_________________________________________________________________________________

If you wish to be notified whenever a new review is posted, please join this <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/2-50-Reviews>user group.
For an archive of all my previous movie reviews, please go <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.284075-2-50-Reviews-Archive>here.
Talk to me on the Twitter, <url=https://twitter.com/martertweet>@martertweet.
 

Chrono212

Fluttershy has a mean K:DR
May 19, 2009
1,846
0
0
What about GLaDOS?!

OT: I was lucky enough to get my act together and see it in the cinema and it really does need to be seen on a big screen.
 

Porecomesis

New member
Jul 10, 2010
322
0
0
Not the best written of movies, I'll say, but it is definitely one of the best-looking. Those fights are as dynamic as they get and, best of all, they're easily followed.

Do you think they focused a bit too much on story? I mean, was that subplot with the two scientists and the brain really that necessary?
 

Aurora Firestorm

New member
May 1, 2008
692
0
0
H'okay, here we go.

http://stormingtheivorytower.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-visual-intelligence-of-pacific-rim.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/troy-campbell/how-pacific-rim-made-me-f_b_3594336.html
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/7705-Pacific-Rim


The moral of the story is that just because you have to suspend some disbelief doesn't make a movie stupid, just because kids will like it doesn't mean adults can't, just because it's full of action doesn't mean it doesn't have good character, and just because it doesn't focus on character doesn't mean no one paid any attention to character development. It does. Del Toro put so much effort into making these characters knowable and human without having to build them up, and he built them not via dialogue etc., but by visuals.

The depth is there if you just look. Everyone's waiting for slow character scenes, but you can't do that here -- you have to get your depth while the rush is still happening. You can do that. Just no one seems to bother.
 

C117

New member
Aug 14, 2009
1,331
0
0
Just got back home from watching it in the cinema. One of the things my friends and I picked up on, is that there are three big action scenes; one int the beginning of the film, one in the middle, and one in the climax. And the middle one is the best one by far. Which is a bit of a problem, because you expect the climax to top the middle, right? Except it doesn't.

What I really liked about the film was how BIG they managed to make the robots and monsters feel. That is something that several movies seem to have trouble with.

In the end, this is a movie I am glad I went to see, if only for the action scenes, but it is less than likely that I will ever see it again. Except for the action scenes.
 

TheEvilCheese

Cheesey.
Dec 16, 2008
1,151
0
0
So it's worth seeing at the IMAX then? Failing that, it'll be on a friend's projector hooked up to his surround sound in a few months time.
 

kurokotetsu

Proud Master
Sep 17, 2008
428
0
0
TheEvilCheese said:
So it's worth seeing at the IMAX then? Failing that, it'll be on a friend's projector hooked up to his surround sound in a few months time.
Yes, it is worth seeing in IMAX.

Also, while silly and cheesy action is where this movie is, I disagree that it is dmb. A movie that names it's tow leading scientists Gottfried [Liebniz] and [Issac] Newton, making the first a man that believes in numbers above all and that they are the language of nature while the other is a tad more esoteric, is not a film that is dumb. The contrary is quite smart. It doesn't pour itself over complex characters or memorable dialogue, no, but it takes so much time in the details that you can see the love, time and effort that was left itno it. The mecha and nerde references are through the roof and not out of place. Rocket punches, visual winks, names, archetypes, everything is done with such an attention to detail that you can't say it is dumb. It is fun and not very "deep" movie, but not just "dumb fun" if you know were to look.
 

nasteypenguin

New member
Mar 2, 2011
94
0
0
I think this should be considered a misuse of the word 'dumb.' I thought I understood what in meant, in that it referred to movies which had little imagination to pretty much all of it's criteria. With Pacific Rim however, we're using it specifically to describe a film with little complexity to it's story. I think most people understand why the film didn't attempt a more enthralling story and realise that that is part of what made the movie much more fun; so why do we judge it's intellectual impact only on that basis?

The simple fact that it is so enjoyable to watch is surely a mark of understanding on the creators part. The action in the film was, in my opinion, superb entirely because it was thought about and perceived more so than many stories are; the fights rise in tension as a story would, the action grows in scale as a story would, the monikers of what we would think of as intellectual storytelling are apparent in parts of the movie which aren't the story. Hell the Superpowered Sword of Doom appears later because of this concept. It just strikes me as odd that a movie is labeled as 'dumb' because it focuses on aspects other than - incoming pretentiousness - the familiar.

To me it's like judging Blade Runner as boring because of it's action sequences, sure it had them and they were mediocre but that wasn't what the movie was about.
 

shogunblade

New member
Apr 13, 2009
1,542
0
0
I LOVED Pacific Rim. I went out of town and saw it in a IMAX 3D theater (I don't support 3D, but if I had an opportunity to see a movie in 3D, I wanted it to be this one).

I give the movie a 9 out of 10, just because of all the fun I had, the laughs I did get, the characters I watched interact, the emotion I felt (I did shed a few tears, and thankfully no one would have noticed under my 3D glasses) and the moments where every five minutes, I whispered to myself 'Ho-ho-holy Shit!' told me this movie was just a lot of fun, and that's all it was meant to be.

The movie is nothing more than a gigantic cartoon, and in that respect, it is brilliant. I loved this movie, It's not a 'dumb' action movie. I'd regard that to a lot of other movies, but Pacific Rim is not one of them. I sort of reminds me of 'Speed Racer', which is also made to just be fun and flashy, but not stupid, it's a cartoon, so treat it like one.
I had a ton of fun with this movie, and very little could make me say otherwise about it. Del Toro directs the movie so well (He knows it's a cartoon, and he knows it's not supposed to be Michael Bay's Transformers, it's an anime, so treat it like one).

I'd pay money to watch it again, and I haven't watched a movie I'd do that for in a long time.
 

Daaaah Whoosh

New member
Jun 23, 2010
1,041
0
0
All I can say about Pacific Rim is that I wish there was more of it. For the story, I wish the characters had more time to interact, clash, and reconcile their differences before the final fight. For the fight scenes, I really REALLY wanted to see four Jaegers fight four Kaiju simultaneously, but, alas, most of the fighting was one-on-one, and Gypsy Danger got far and away the most screen time despite being fairly 'ordinary'. As for the world, I want to play a video game where I just get to explore for hours upon hours the giant hangar bays, massive Pacific walls, and labrynthine Kaiju graveyards/lively cities that we got to see so briefly in the film. The same could be said for the rest of Guillermo del Toro's films; they all exist in beautiful, epic, and aweful worlds that cannot be explored enough.
Long story short, I want all twelve freaking years of the Jaeger-Kaiju war, to be explored, experienced, and loved. Pacific Rim fails only in that it did not give me enough.
 

uchytjes

New member
Mar 19, 2011
969
0
0
My biggest complaint about the movie is that we didn't see enough of any of the jaegers beyond Gypsy Danger. I absolutely ADORED the design of the russian jaeger and the chinese jaeger looked cool as well. I just hope we get a sequel (or prequel as it may be) to expand upon the earlier years in the war. Hell, make a movie about that marshall guy's fights and his "solo combat" that he was known for.
 

Azahul

New member
Apr 16, 2011
419
0
0
Aurora Firestorm said:
H'okay, here we go.

http://stormingtheivorytower.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-visual-intelligence-of-pacific-rim.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/troy-campbell/how-pacific-rim-made-me-f_b_3594336.html
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/7705-Pacific-Rim


The moral of the story is that just because you have to suspend some disbelief doesn't make a movie stupid, just because kids will like it doesn't mean adults can't, just because it's full of action doesn't mean it doesn't have good character, and just because it doesn't focus on character doesn't mean no one paid any attention to character development. It does. Del Toro put so much effort into making these characters knowable and human without having to build them up, and he built them not via dialogue etc., but by visuals.

The depth is there if you just look. Everyone's waiting for slow character scenes, but you can't do that here -- you have to get your depth while the rush is still happening. You can do that. Just no one seems to bother.
I was terribly disappointed with the film, honestly. I did find it dumb, formulaic, and boring. Raleigh's character arc seemed to end the moment he was recruited, and to this day I still don't know why they even had him in the film. A movie that focussed on Idris Elba's character and Mako as its two central characters would have had a lot more going for it. Raleigh was just... there to give the film a white male protagonist, as far as I could tell.

I do agree that the film has a lot of good visual design that helps the story immensely... I just don't feel it makes up for its shortfalls. I could honestly have used another big fight scene, one where Mako and Raleigh (assuming we have to have his utterly flat character in the film) struggle with their compatibility as the major obstacle to be overcome. I didn't feel it needed more slow character scenes, I honestly felt it needed more big action scenes. They had the perfect system of conveying character in big and exciting moments, but they never capitalised on it.

My biggest problem though was just that I was bored. The film felt less like a homage and more like a copy. In a response to MovieBob's review, another forum member (I forget who), described the film in roughly the following manner: "I knew how every scene would end the moment it began, and spent most of the film waiting for the movie I was watching to reach the point my brain had already reached." I know exactly how he felt, that's exactly how it came off to me.

It wasn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it was on the lower side of mediocre. Quite a disappointment, and while each link (aside from MovieBob's frankly ludicrous review) you posted certainly has points in their favour, the movie as a whole just didn't work for me. I can see where they're coming from, but what the film did well just failed to outweigh the feeling of boredom I felt throughout.
 

Tilted_Logic

New member
Apr 2, 2010
525
0
0
This is one of those movies I wish had been hyped like Star Wars (the prequels; hear me out). I would have LOVED to see Pepsi bottles covered in the different Jaegers, or some actual hype about the different variations of robots. I would have loved to see some short almost teaser like videos on the different bots - root for Crimson Typhoon or Cherno Alpha!

Aside from the present day super-hero movies with an already huge fanbase or long-running series already boasting plenty of collectables, I feel Pacific Rim really had a shot at being one of those movies that got people (or at least kids/teens) more involved in the entertainment.

Maybe it's nostalgia from me just missing all the Spice Girls Bubble-gum wrapper collecting, or buying a drink based on which character was on the bottle, but I can't emphasize how much fun it would have been to collect a bunch of useless trinkets based around my favorite Jaeger.

My only gripe with the movie was
the lack of screen time for any other Jaeger than Gypsy Danger. Seeing a badass like Crimson Typhoon get taken down like it was a childs' toy was very disappointing. Of course it emphasized the point that these new Kaiju are not messing around, but damn. I was so excited to see the other countries kicking ass, only for them to get shut down.

I just haven't felt this 'into' a movie in a really, really long time. Like your review states, it was just a really fun film. But dang if I don't want to see more of the Jaegers in action.

(If there are any awesome trailers or teaser clips on the other Jaegers, please fill me in! I live in a bubble.)
 

TakerFoxx

Elite Member
Jan 27, 2011
1,125
0
41
Azahul said:
I was terribly disappointed with the film, honestly. I did find it dumb, formulaic, and boring. Raleigh's character arc seemed to end the moment he was recruited, and to this day I still don't know why they even had him in the film. A movie that focussed on Idris Elba's character and Mako as its two central characters would have had a lot more going for it. Raleigh was just... there to give the film a white male protagonist, as far as I could tell.

I do agree that the film has a lot of good visual design that helps the story immensely... I just don't feel it makes up for its shortfalls. I could honestly have used another big fight scene, one where Mako and Raleigh (assuming we have to have his utterly flat character in the film) struggle with their compatibility as the major obstacle to be overcome. I didn't feel it needed more slow character scenes, I honestly felt it needed more big action scenes. They had the perfect system of conveying character in big and exciting moments, but they never capitalised on it.

My biggest problem though was just that I was bored. The film felt less like a homage and more like a copy. In a response to MovieBob's review, another forum member (I forget who), described the film in roughly the following manner: "I knew how every scene would end the moment it began, and spent most of the film waiting for the movie I was watching to reach the point my brain had already reached." I know exactly how he felt, that's exactly how it came off to me.

It wasn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it was on the lower side of mediocre. Quite a disappointment, and while each link (aside from MovieBob's frankly ludicrous review) you posted certainly has points in their favour, the movie as a whole just didn't work for me. I can see where they're coming from, but what the film did well just failed to outweigh the feeling of boredom I felt throughout.
That was my reaction as well. There were nothing new brought to the table, no surprises in the plot or characters, and the much-vaunted battles scenes were okay, but nothing spectacular. As an overall experience, it's passable I guess, but it had lost me by the end, to the point where I started reading online stories on my phone during the climax.

And I really want to see an end to the idea of "Good characterization doesn't matter if the action is great." Good characterization makes you invested in said characters. It makes you like them and care about what happens to them. And as such, when they're put in peril, you feel actual suspense. And when they do something cool, you pump your fist in celebration. Unfortunately, I didn't really care about about these characters, so everything they did was "Eh, whatever," and while there were a couple of neat spots during the fights, it wasn't enough to really engage my interest. In fact, I didn't care about what happened to pretty much anyone in this film. I was actually mentally begging for them to kill off the main leads at the end, just so I'd see something unexpected.

Let's bring up a fairly recent example: Real Steel. I didn't expect much from this movie. It was pretty much Rocky meets Rock'em Sock'em Robots. But I ended up being surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Why did I enjoy it? Because of the good script, flawed but sympathetic characters whose actors had great chemistry, and a robot that actually emoted. I came to like the underdog trio and found myself rooting for them, which in turn made the fight scenes awesome. And even though I already figured out how the plot of the movie was going to go partway in, I was able to suspend my disbelief and not care. Give me Real Steal over Pacific Rim any day.
 

Azahul

New member
Apr 16, 2011
419
0
0
TakerFoxx said:
That was my reaction as well. There were nothing new brought to the table, no surprises in the plot or characters, and the much-vaunted battles scenes were okay, but nothing spectacular. As an overall experience, it's passable I guess, but it had lost me by the end, to the point where I started reading online stories on my phone during the climax.

And I really want to see an end to the idea of "Good characterization doesn't matter if the action is great." Good characterization makes you invested in said characters. It makes you like them and care about what happens to them. And as such, when they're put in peril, you feel actual suspense. And when they do something cool, you pump your fist in celebration. Unfortunately, I didn't really care about about these characters, so everything they did was "Eh, whatever," and while there were a couple of neat spots during the fights, it wasn't enough to really engage my interest. In fact, I didn't care about what happened to pretty much anyone in this film. I was actually mentally begging for them to kill off the main leads at the end, just so I'd see something unexpected.

Let's bring up a fairly recent example: Real Steel. I didn't expect much from this movie. It was pretty much Rocky meets Rock'em Sock'em Robots. But I ended up being surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Why did I enjoy it? Because of the good script, flawed but sympathetic characters whose actors had great chemistry, and a robot that actually emoted. I came to like the underdog trio and found myself rooting for them, which in turn made the fight scenes awesome. And even though I already figured out how the plot of the movie was going to go partway in, I was able to suspend my disbelief and not care. Give me Real Steal over Pacific Rim any day.
Exactly. Watching MovieBob's review of Pacific Rim, all I could think of was that I couldn't believe this was the same man that had done his District 9 review. The line "Action scenes have more weight if we care about the characters in them. People still get this, right?" sprang to mind. Pacific Rim seems like the perfect example of a movie that failed to do that, that hoped flash would allow it to get away with having a lack of substance.