Review of Pacific Rim (2013) by Salah A — 22 Jul 2014

6.5/10.

I don't think I can name a movie that I had more hype for than Pacific Rim. I first saw the trailer for it back in December 2012, when I was seeing the midnight screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It was the most unbelievable trailer I had ever seen. As soon as I saw that trailer, I made my dad promise that he would take me to it in IMAX-3D when it came out seven months later. When that glorious release day finally arrived, I fulfilled my wish and saw it in IMAX-3D, the first time I had ever seen a film in that format. And when I saw it, I absolutely loved it. It was one of my favorite films of 2013. And when it came out on Blu-ray, it was an instant buy for me. But I never got around to rewatching it. It sat on my shelf for months, but finally I got around to watching it with my mom. And, shockingly enough, upon viewing it a second time, it was actually quite a letdown.

I won't bother getting deep into the story, as it's pretty damn obvious what it's about; giant alien monsters (uncreatively named Kaiju) attack earth, so we create giant robots (somewhat creatively named Jaegers) to fight them, and many pew-pews ensue, with a little character-oriented shit thrown in to create some semblance of substance. It's a quasi-ambitious story that, despite how simplistic it sounds, has never really been attempted before. It's certainly an easy idea to make entertaining, and in that department, the film most certainly succeeds, but it still wasn't crafted in exactly the right way to make it truly great.

I'll get into the pros first. Now, of course, this film was only made for one clear purpose: big, shiny pew-pews. And in that department, it succeeds. The special effects in this movie are absolutely flawless. The robots and monsters both look incredibly realistic and detailed, with each one coming in a different shape and form. The imagery is incredibly fantastical and breathtaking, and only a director like Guillermo Del Toro could bring them to life in such a way. His designs in this film are flawless, and his directorial style is evident here, with gorgeous cinematography that never appears too saturated. Every shot is perfectly framed, and it's an absolute stunner on both the big screen and Blu-ray. And the action sequences, while somewhat scattershot, are extremely entertaining and deliver what the trailers promise. The story also has some pretty decent ideas to it; the idea of the two Jaeger pilots forming a neural bridge was an interesting idea that played a pretty decent part in the story, and I'll admit that the idea of giant alien monsters coming out of an interdimensional portal in the ocean is a pretty original concept. These worked pretty well with the story and added a nice aura to the film.

However, the area where the film suffers is the stuff surrounding it, which goes from boring and mediocre to just plain unbearable. The pacing and story structure of this film are incredibly clunky and lackluster. The film's opening sequence, for instance, is utter shit. The film rushes into its story and action far too quickly. The Transformers movies all took their time with their first quarter to set up character development and story ideas, but this just jumped into it without any story setup, and it was so rushed it was almost headache-inducing. Honestly. this film should have been about 45 minutes longer, with a good portion of the beginning dedicated to development. There should have been more buildup to the action. But even then, after that the action sequences are scattered aimlessly throughout the film at odd points that just seem to come and go aimlessly, with very little semblance of passing time, which made it pretty jarring for me. Also, it makes no goddamn sense to me how they were able to build these giant fucking robots in this short amount of time WHILE the kaiju were attacking the earth. I figured we would pretty much be dead by the time they were finished. But whatever, I suppose it's nothing to harp on.

The acting also really doesn't help the movie. Most prominently, Charlie Hunnam, the film's lead, was absolutely godawful. It's actually one of the worst performances of 2013, in my opinion. His character setup and arc wasn't all that bad, and someone like Matt Damon or Tom Cruise could have pulled it off pretty well, but Hunnam performs it in the worst way imaginable. His accent was just completely grating and obvious, and his opening narration is honestly one of the worst narrations I've ever heard. He was so, unbelievably bland and dull, and everytime he spoke it made me want to punch the wall. He really ruins a good portion of the movie for me. The film's female lead, Rinko Kikuchi, is also not particularly good. She just acted like a stereotypical tough Asian woman, which wasn't ever particularly interesting. She was just plain boring. And then, of course, there's the comic relief..... oh god, the motherfucking comic relief. Who did they get? Charlie Day. His character was just completely obnoxious and grating, and he added absolutely nothing to the film for me. To be fair, Day does a pretty decent job playing the character, but his jokes were so obnoxious that it was impossible to make it better. There's also a British comic relief played by Burn Gorman, who is also pretty annoying, although perhaps a bit more bearable due to his nerdy British charm. Now, the two really good performances in this movie come from Idris Elba and Ron Perlman. Elba is perfect as the stoic military figure, and he delivers his subpar lines pretty damn well. Ron Perlman's character doesn't do much to serve any purpose to the story, but he brings his classic Ron Perlman charm to the screen brilliantly, magnificently pulling off an eccentric black marketeer with finesse. But in either case, none of these actors are helped by the film's screenplay, which is pretty clichéd and lackluster. Now, by the standards of a movie like this, the dialogue isn't AWFUL, and I'm probably just thinking like this because of the poor performances from its two leads, but either way it could have used a better human touch.

The other thing that drags this film down is how curiously forgettable it is. Now, of course, I certainly didn't forget this film after I first saw it, because it was the very first film I had ever seen in IMAX-3D, which is pretty unforgettable. But if I had seen this film on a regular-sized screen on first viewing, I think it would have been gone out of my head after I saw it. And the reason for that is because it never had the sense of awe, wonder, and peril that it should have had. Because of how oddly paced and structured it was, I wasn't able to make a good connection with it, and it never truly felt like the world was in danger; it just felt like a bunch of endless pew-pews that served little purpose. I didn't think it was possible for a movie with this much going for it seem so run-of-the-mill in its structure, but this film did. What a shame.

Score for Pacific Rim? A respectable but still shockingly low 6.5/10. Yeah, I hate to give it the same score as The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Counselor, and *shudder* Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but it could have been so much better, This movie had so much fucking potential, but it just wastes it on a perfectly serviceable but still disappointing film with weak story structure, painfully average dialogue, and extremely hit-and-miss performances. Now, there is undoubtedly an enormous amount of entertainment to be found in this movie, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't cheered by it (THE ROBOT DRAGS A FUCKING CARGO SHIP THROUGH THE STREETS OF HONG KONG AND BEATS UP A GIANT ALIEN MONSTER WITH IT!!!!!!). But I just wish it were more competently set-up. I'm actually pretty shocked that this got a fresh score when none of the Transformers films did. Say what you will about the Transformers films, but they went along at a good pace and set up its characters pretty well. Pacific Rim has all the eye-candy and wonder that is to be expected from a film of its kind, but it just didn't have enough structure or substance to anchor its spectacle. It's still ubdoubtedly worth watching, and I'll definitely take a few more peaks of its action sequences on my Blu-ray player, but it definitely wasn't as much fun as it could and should have been.

BUT.......

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL!!!!!