Movie Review: Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim (2013)

As a war between humankind and monstrous sea creatures wages on, a former pilot and a trainee are paired up to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon in a desperate effort to save the world from the apocalypse.  Short synopsis of Pacific Rim taken from IMDb.com

First off, the things I liked.  I liked that Pacific Rim didn't seem to star any regular big name faces (or at least any I know, that is).  The change of face was nice, given most films can't stand without one big name on the billboard.  And I liked the basic idea of aliens coming through an interstellar gateway deep under the ocean.  I especially liked that the plot wasn't heavily American-centric.  There were Russians (of course I'd like that), Chinese, Japanese, Aussies, etc...  I also enjoyed the basic premises of alien monsters having to be taken down after great effort, and the fact that the world pooled its efforts together in order to fight said aliens.

What else?  I liked that the plot took time to progress.  So many films seem to want to get everything done in a week or so of story time.  Or even less.  "What's your hurry," I sometimes find myself asking the screen.  Yes, I talk to my TV screen.  And I'm not ashamed to admit it.  It's not the silliest thing I talk to, by a far sight. 

If you didn't think a movie about giant robots with human pilots wouldn't cause me to seek out a comparison shot of two giant robots piloted by humans in a grand "VS" picture style, you don't know my inner child very well.  And for the record, Voltron would kick wimpy Power Rangers Megazord's butt.  Stupid Power Rangers. / Source: thenerdmachine.com

But back to my point.  Pacific Rim's plot took years, and the idea of temporal progression was nice.  Gave the storyline weight.  And I must say, was surprised and somewhat pleased that our hero and our lead female character never became overtly romantic with each other.  Even at the end, when I thought they might kiss, it didn't happen.  This was refreshing, given that by today's standards, all love interests must copulate in order for ti to be "real" love - ha!  I am pointing out all the things I liked because I don't want you to think that my following gripes totally dismiss Pacific Rim from being watchable, even when considering the rest of the films numerous problems. 

So, on to the no-so-good parts.  I didn't like the stereotypical plot.  Goes like this: "Hero loses brother, gets called back to fight one last heroic battle, rinse and repeat..."  There was the obligatory martial arts stuff.  And the obligatory big CGI effects.  And the obligatory annoying scientists guys.  AND the obligatory quasi-bad guy black-marketer (played with obvious tongue-in-cheek by Ron Perlman).  Further, the sci-fi aspects of the film seemed a stretch to me.  The plasma cannon hand, the humongous nuke at the end, the going through the gateway and then ejecting from the crippled "Jaeger" and escaping - just in the nick of time, of course.  And the heroic sacrifice part.  AND of course, the traumatized lead female character.  Yes, for all that Pacific Rim does well, or even differently, it still fails on many levels for me.  Sorry, but that's where I'm at.

Or to summarize that, Pacific Rim was interesting in some respects, but the well-trod stuff lost it much of its punch for me (yes, I realize a movie with lots of punching robots losing its "punch" is something of an irony...).  You know, maybe I've just seen too many sci-fi movies.  Is that possible?  Pacific Rim wasn't especially a bad movie, but just a predictable one.  The parts that stood out made it worth watching.  Without those, it would have just been another Battleship.  Shudder.

The parting comment:

See, they got it too.  Voltron, Power Rangers, Pacific Rim.  Evolution, I'm telling ya.

A two-for again. 


 Yeah, that was so cool when the President made that speech and said "Today we are cancelling the apocalypse," and then the jets went off and shot down the giant robots and the aliens couldn't take over our minds and use us to open an inter-dimensional rift under the ocean.  It was awesome!