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| Pacific Rim (2013) Legendary Pictures |
Go big or go extinct! You may already be thinking that this movie did not appear
to be watchable from the trailers, but you are dead wrong. Pacific Rim gets the
joke that it is a part of. No matter what anyone tells you about this film, you
should know that there is no joke someone can make to take away the integrity of
this film. It doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t and lives up to more
than you can divine from a single trailer. I loved this film because of these
facts and because it was incredibly interactive. Characters were easy to follow
and although the script was overt in trying to explain drift compatibility and dimensional
gateways, you cared genuinely about Mako and Raleigh. I found that each
character had a purpose and all of them were fun to watch during at least one
part of the film.
One of the best things about Pacific Rim is that it was
properly labeled as its own movie. This isn’t Transformers 5, it wasn’t a Power
Rangers remake, and it wasn’t an updated film version of Mecha Godzilla (and
thank God they weren’t). It is a movie about new characters facing a threat we
have wanted to see on film since we were children. It wasn’t animated, it wasn’t
dramatized, it was just a movie about robots punching alien sea monsters in the
face and it was great. Who cares
about all the science that was mostly unbelievable? I don’t expect all that
much science in a film anyway although some plots depend on the science (see
my star trek review). Pacific Rim didn’t need to be weighed down into a
lengthy physics lessons and one-liners of dialogue that explain some mystical
science device in the future. It was what you expect and it did a great job of
it. What more can you ask for as a movie viewer?
I review movies every day and can tell you that many of them
diverge from their original plot lines in order to develop too many characters,
or find too many new sub plots. Pacific Rim never really does this (other than
one time that I can think of) and you get what you need from the film. The only
think I wanted more from the entire movie was more Kaiju and Jeager fights and
wish that there was a larger montage scene that showed every single one. They
are impressive at scale and a feat of CGI genius. Luckily I will get my wish
because Pacific Rim 2 has already been announced! Whhhatttttt?
Now I feel like some of you are already saying “BUT ADAM
THIS MOVIE LOOKS SO DUMB” and I understand that. Granted I am a man that grew
up in the 90s and I understand that not all people will enjoy this film, but it’s
not like this idea was new or groundbreaking (see any anime TV series ever). When
I was a kid I loved power rangers and even the girls loved power rangers. The
idea that you got a robot you could use to fight evil in the streets of downtown
somewhere was a great fantasy. I remember it was a fight to choose your ranger
at recess and the red and green rangers were always the first taken while there
were always girls that wanted the pink and yellow rangers. The show was awful,
but it has sown the seeds of robots fighting alien creatures long ago. It was
still a good idea today and thankfully they made this film and it wasn’t done
horribly like the transformers series (I seriously don’t know how it could get
worse, but I am sure they will find a way).
Also, I kind of enjoy seeing American films start using
terms to explain things in other languages. If you speak another language then
you probably already know that English has some major flaws that can’t be
ignored. In Latin it is difficult to come up with new phrases if there is not a
base to explain the word. Usually people would call the Jaegers ‘giant robots’ or
‘mechs’ and the Kaiju ‘alien sea monsters’ because that is the only base we can
derive it from. In the past year, we have seen two phrases from Japanese that
already exist for things in movies. The two phrases I can remember are Kaiju
and Kuzuri (used in The Wolverine). Kaiju means “strange beast” and Kuzuri just
means “wolverine” although in the movie Mariko defines it as “an animal with
long claws and sharp teeth that fears nothing.” I enjoy this vernacular because
it explains words in a single word that would take a Latin or Greek base a sentence
to explain without creating a new word. It’s entertaining and gives us a language
lesson about other cultures, which in my opinion is desperately needed.
Many people have told me that because this film didn’t make
any money in the U.S. they will not create another like it. The truth is that
it did not do very well in the U.S., but it did extremely well in the rest of
the world. The movie cost 190 million to make and only made around 100 million
in the box offices in the U.S. The great thing is that the movie made 305
million internationally and even broke records in China. I am guessing that the
sequel to this movie will do even better in the box office because many people
(including myself) didn’t even see the movie in theaters.
I also thought that Charlie Hunnam was a great lead actor in
this role. I can only remember seeing him in Greet Street Hooligans in 2005 and
to this day it is still one of my favorite movies. Ron Pearlman and Charlie Day
both had decent roles as well, but the star of the show was Idris Elba who did
a great job at being a leader/father character. He is great at delivering
one-liners and even his monologue wasn’t horrible. I can’t wait to see him as
Mandela.
To say the least, I thought this was a great film and was absolutely
worth watching. I would consider it to be family friendly (there is no nudity
and if you don’t mind blue goo for blood then it should be fine). I felt like a
little kid at a carnival when I was watching this film and I will probably see
it again before the end of the year.
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