I wanna be a Jaeger pilot!
Stat! Like, now! Forget now…YESTERDAY!
I think it’s safe to say that a lot of us, if not most, are geekoids for giant monsters vs. giant robot flicks, which is why a lot of us started drooling when it was announced a couple years back that Guillermo del Toro was going to give us one. Del Toro? Check. Giant monsters? Check. Giant robots? Check.
I just peed myself? Check.
There are enough reviews out there by now that I’m pretty sure everyone knows the story, so I won’t go into any detail here, except to say that the back story—where the Kaijus come from, why they need two pilots to run a Jaeger, and how the “drift” (melding of two minds together) works is all laid out in understandable jargon at the onset, so we don’t have to burden ourselves with those questions two-thirds into the movie. And for that we thank you, Mr. del Toro. And the reason we give thanks is because that allowed for some excessive wiggle room for some of the best action slugfest smash mouth scenes between monsters and robots we’re ever going to see—period!
Michael Bay, take notes!
One of my biggest problems with the Transformer movies has always been the speed and fluidity with which the giant robots in those movies are allowed to move, as if realities like gravity and mass don’t exist. Not so here, my friends. While the Kaiju are capable of making a quick move or two here and there, both their movements and those of the Jaegers are grounded in reality in this movie, and we the audience are the beneficiaries of del Toro’s brilliance!
What I’m saying is that if you geek out for jaw dropping action sequences showing monsters and robots jackin’ each other up, you’re in for a treat like nothing you’ve seen since…since…since I don’t know what! I don’t think there was a single solitary fight sequence where the thought of “What just happened?” crossed my mind. The scenes were beautiful. There’s just no other way to put it, without going over board and coming across like a del Toroite (new phrase/word?), who’s blind in one eye and can’t see anything with the other except through rose colored glass. When a gigantic punch is launched from underneath water; the punch and the water thrown off and through the air move in about as “real motion” as anything you’ll probably ever see. When giant robots walk through yards deep water, you get it that there’s resistance against the robot’s legs and that it’s probably not a good idea for them to try and move too quickly. I’m telling you straight up, for what it is we want to see in this movie, we get it!
This summer’s slate of action genre movies, whether sci-fi, comic book based, or plain ol’ ass-kickin’ action is huge, which we were all pumped up about, long before the season got here. And then came Iron Man 3, Man of Steel and The Lone Ranger, all three of which I enjoyed for the most part, though with a nod to a fault here or there for me personally, while others have simply ravaged all three unmercifully—and unacceptably, in my opinion.
But with Pacific Rim, I feel strongly that the summer blockbuster movie we’ve all been waiting for this year—no offense to the other three—is finally here! ‘Rim IS the movie we can all circle our wagons around and feel vindicated for our geekoidish desires, because everybody’s probably going to love it. Is it perfect? No. The script was a bit stiff at times and could have used a bit of polish here and there, but it wasn’t mind numbingly jarring or an insult to our intellect. But everything else? It was just fine, because the battles between the Kaiju and Jaegers were out of this world!
Excuse me for a moment…I just peed myself, again.
Charlie Hunnam is a joy to watch, as far as I’m concerned (unlike Ror, apparently—wink). My wife and I love his work in Sons of Anarchy, and while he was a bit of the same in Pacific Rim as in Sons, and some of his scenes either feel forced or lacking a solid punch because of the script, but none of it makes you think, “What the hell?” like we did while watching Green Lantern, as an example. But Idris Elba absolutely steals the show, without question. If you felt sorry for his lack of involvement in Thor or any other movies he’s been in recently, I guarantee you he’s more than made up for it in Pacific Rim. I won’t spoil it here, but there’s a moment in the movie when he utters a line that will probably never be forgotten anytime soon by movies goers the world over. Seriously, when the scene played out, a crap eating grin pulled across my face, as the audience around me laughed—that “oh hell yeah” kind of laugh, not laughing at him kind of laugh. As for everyone else, they’re good—not great, but good, because they don’t have to be great, because…
…this is a freakin’ movie about giant monsters going toe-to-toe with giant robots!
You’re not going to become totally invested in the other characters, but you’ll invest enough that when their stories play out you’ll feel it. Will you cry if someone dies? Probably not. Will you lean back in your theater seat and say, “Ah, maaan!” if someone dies? I think probably so.
Let’s face it; this summer has given us some much anticipated movies that tweaked us the wrong way one way or another, to an extent, up until now. But Pacific Rim isn’t one of them. Pacific Rim delivers the goods, keeping your attention as you work your way to the bottom of your popcorn bag/box unknowingly, your transfixed attention seemingly unbreakable until you hear the slurp-suck-slurp-sucking sound of your “I can’t believe it’s all gone” favorite soda.
Pacific Rim is just a fun summer blockbuster movie, as it was intended to be.
So let us be thankful and go back to see it as many times as we can afford…or at least until “The Wolverine” comes out (wink), because while this chapter is clearly a stand alone, there’s room for more. And if we want more, we’re going to have to go to bat to get it!
As a giant monsters vs. giant robots enthusiastic, Pacific Rim gets 5 out of 5 stars. As a movie geek, it gets 4 out of 5 stars in my book, because it’s just a flat out fun movie to watch. But you be the judge as well, don’t just take my word for it, and let me know what you think.
I’m Citizen…