Review of Pacific Rim (2013) by Thehonestcritic — 13 Jul 2013

I wish I could be writing a positive review. I really do. Unfortunately I just cant. But at the same time, I can't write a negative review. The movie was by no means good or bad. It had potential but I think it was poorly executed. The concept was gold. But the film was plagued by bad acting and poor character development along with numerous other flaws.

I will start with characters. First of all, I hardly knew the names for any of them. names were hardly ever mentioned and if they were it was in a robot while screaming with tons of background noise. Characters such as the Asian basketball team or the Russian duo were given little to no development that I felt could have really helped the movie. Now for the main character (whose name I do not even know). He was casted poorly. The main character in a movie like this should be a bad ass who is loveable and relateable. He was not. He was not a very good actor who to me did not even fit the role. His Asian partner, Mako I believe her name was, was awful. Her part was terrible to me. She was the worst actor, her script was terrible, and I think her part brought down the movie completely. My favorite characters were the British man and his son. They had a good amount of screen time, multiple fights, and were the best actors by far. Overall I felt that Pacific Rim would have succeeded so much more for me if it had better actors and a better script.

Now for the visuals and the fights. The movie was not all bad. After the first hour or so of bad plot and letdowns I was treated to a visual and audible show. The fight for Tokyo/ Tokyo Bay was great. The giant robots were all designed very well, had good visuals, moved realistically, and were entertaining. The monsters were also visually pleasing and some of them were downright scary, and they should have been. However, a problem I had with the fights was the rain. Most if not all of the fight were doused in rain, which made it difficult for me to fully appreciated the fighting. Regardless, the fights themselves were still the best part of the movie. I think that the team spent so much time and focused too much on the fights that it hurt if not ruined the rest of the movie.

Now I will point out my biggest problems with Pacific Rim. The first hour sucked. The main characters motivation was not strong enough and he acted poorly. I understand the point of the stick fight to find a good partner, but it was unnecessary and poorly choreographed. In the beginning of the movie, I was given a summery of how the world came to its situation. How San Francisco was destroyed along with other cities and how the world united to fight back. Instead of the hour of garbage development, why not devote that hour to actually showing those fights instead of telling me for 3 minutes or so? If you are going to capitalize on the fights, REALLY capitalize the fights and give me more. Maybe there might have been a problem with length but if they took out the things they did poorly for more fights, a movie like this would not suffer. Now for my number one flaw. This might not seem like a big deal to many but it made me so angry that I was shaking my head. The sword. I get that the fights cannot be too short. I get the punches look cool and make an interesting visual. But when the sword was treated as a last resort I just lost it. The sword should have been a standard thing. If I have a sword and I am fighting someone or something, I am going to use it. I would not be punching and not use it. Now maybe instead of using it all the time they could have given a reason why it had to be limited. Maybe it puts too much stress on the arm or uses up too much power. Anything. Near the end, underwater, the sword was all they had and it was bad ass. I can not get over how mad that sword made me. The use of the reactor as a secret weapon to burn the monster was creative and it was a twist. A sword should not have been used as a twist. Maybe they could have had it ripped of and be forced to punch. I am sorry it was so aggravating. At the end of the movie, both Mako and the main character made it out alive. I was lead to believe it was a suicide mission, and it should have been. I was fine with Mako making it out. But I would not have had the main character make it out too. A more fitting ending would have been him alone, sinking down, thinking to himself that he avenged his brother and saved the world and sacrificed himself for humanity. But for whatever reason they chose to go the opposite way and give me no sense of an ending.

Had I directed Pacific Rim, I could not sit back and watch it and say to myself "This is ready for the public. This is a good thing." It suffered from poor directing, casting, acting, and plot. However, the true redeeming qualities were the fights, which were not perfect. I can not say to not go see the movie. If you are into monster fights and that is all you want, then by all means go. If not, don't.