Review of Pacific Rim (2013) by Danjel H — 11 Apr 2016

This is an okay film. Good effects, good action sequences, good creature design. There's a sense of scale and spectacle. I liked the world building in the narrative, and the time progression along the history of kaiju attacks.

But - it shoots itself in the foot many times. The dialogue is weak, very generic and oddly accented - although the Australian is passable.

Strategically the story is all over the place. Why put the pilots in a very vulnerable position? We see the pilots training/sparring with weapons - yet the fact that the Jaeger has its own sword is delayed for a long time. Why did it ever throw a punch when the sword is so clearly superior to all of its other offensive capabilities?

We are shown an international body removing funding from the Jaeger programme in order to fund a giant wall - yet the wall is proved quickly ineffective. We never hear from this governing body again - have they decided to still persist with the wall? Why haven't they revisited the Jaeger programme? This is a big plot hole.

We are told that the portal will only allow the passage of kaiju... yet it allows not one, but two metallic life-pods passage back to Earth.

We are not given a central character that has to give up anything they want to gain what he needs - or really do anything that makes him learn anything. He pretty much just goes through the motions and it is only supporting characters that have to face any kind of personal issue (they die). Hunnam sort of has this zen "i grieved during the five year time jump" kind of vibe. He seemed content just to be in construction. It's.