Somewhere in a film commissioner’s office, someone reached over to their movie collection – The Matrix; Iron Man; Godzilla; Power Rangers; and Transformers – and clumsily knocked the DVDs to the floor. As they pick them up in a flurry of apologies they realise that, these five films combined, would make a brilliant spectacle, and thus ‘Pacific Rim’ was born.
A massive tectonic crack has appeared in the Pacific Ocean from which Japanese-movie-staple style giant monsters (Kaiju) start emerging on an increasingly regular basis with a gradually increasing difficulty level, like progression of a video game. As revealed in a brisk opening montage – a really enjoyable potted history of the incidents and the human fight back which is, arguably, more exciting than what we get for the rest of the film and would have made a better first half of the movie – human kind clubs together to create a global set of fighting robots (Jaegers) positioned around the globe, a sort of cross between Thunderbirds and Power Rangers, but without the help of a floating head and a stuttering robot.
Sadly this system isn’t perfect and soon the operation is decommissioned and replaced by a massive wall-building programme of coastal defences which, naturally, proves ineffective and Idris Elba’s moustached Stacker Pentecost (what a brilliant names) has to lead the fight back against more and more difficult to beat creatures using the dregs of what is left of the robot programme, with only a handful of operators ready to man them, including Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) who, because the pilots having to ‘mind meld’ to operate the powerful machines, struggles due to childhood trauma involving the large monsters in arguably a pretty scary nightmarish scene from half-way through the movie.
After a promising montage-based opening ‘Pacific Rim’ starts to lose its way. The opening third is exciting and builds a strong universe but, like so many blockbusters we’ve had recently, just descends into CGI battles that lack really any excitement. It feels like a film that would have fitted neatly into the late 1990s apocalypse films. It includes all the tropes expected including Elba’s president-like motivational speech; scenes of martial arts; and am – alleged – comedy sub-plot involving actors Charlie Day, Burn Gorman and a, mostly free of make-up, Ron Perlman, who goes around most of the film looking like a more handsome version of the baddie from ‘Men In Black 3’.
‘Pacific Rim’ does have more brain than some blockbusters and excels mostly when it deals with the human side of the battle, which it does frequently, but it never feels like it’s truly going anywhere. There are some great battle scenes but most are cloaked in darkness and heavy rain, as if we were back again in the 1990s were CGI had to be covered up to make it seem more real. This film, and even TV budgets now, shows it can all be done in day so let’s make it not so dark! And I saw it in 2D, so I dread to think how much viewers could see behind the dark 3D glasses.
‘Pacific Rim’ was an enjoyable film but it never quite lives up to the promise shown in the opening montage. The focus on the human side at parts works and the actors are thoroughly convincing in their roles but the battle scenes eventually become too samey, and the design of the robots and monsters gets lost in the incredibly dark, rain-soaked palette; they look great when in lighter surroundings. The comedy sub-plot doesn’t feel funny enough and so comes across as a little cheesy, but there are some truly well set-up scenes, such as Mako’s memories of seeing a monster as a little girl. For a summer blockbuster it ticks all the boxes and for someone brought up on ‘Independence Day’, ‘Deep Impact’, ‘Godzilla’ and the like as a teenager it feels like comfortable territory, but it could do with a good thirty minutes shaved off its running time. Idris Elba, though, is brilliant in his role and promises good things for future films he is due to appear in.
An interestingly established universe with some great characters and a well rounded look at the world, but one that we spend a little bit too much time in.
(6.5/10)
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