Jul 13, 2013

"Pacific Rim" - 2013 - movie review

While convention tells us aliens come from outer space in ships adorned with colorful lights and are either here to befriend us or enslave us, "Pacific Rim" posits the notion that aliens arrive via a wormhole from another dimension that opens along the border of the Pacific plate and then rise from the ocean floor to wreak havoc for no particular reason. Sounds good to me.

These gi-normous, angry beings are known as Kaiju and it's going to take more than Seal Team 6 (no disrespect intended) to bring an end to their reign of ruin. Indeed the response put forth by humanity's best and brightest is to create massive rock-em sock-em robots known as Jaegers and driven by WWF fans to meet the enemy in the street for a public smackdown.

If this all seems a little short on intellectual gravitas it is. It's not aimed at fans of the tedious and futile SETI program it's aimed at teenage boys: either actual ones or the ones that remain inside most men long after they assume the mantal and responsibilities of adulthood. As such it succeeds spectacularly and manages to completely avoid Michael Bay's frat-boy put downs of women in the process.

The film opens with a kind of "Star Wars" meets "Lord of the Rings" set up wherein we're brought up to speed. We're told about the origins of the Kaiju, the human response (the initiation of the Jaeger giant-fighting-robot program) and the euphoria that followed initial success. Said euphoria doesn't last though and as the opening sequence dissolves into the movie's present (the year 2020) we join a pair of Jaeger pilots preparing to do battle. To say it doesn't go well for them would be an understatement and their defeat signals the beginning of the end for the Jaegar program which is eventually replaced by a new strategy: build a wall and hunker down.

But there are those among the herd who refuse to follow their "leaders" into Allislostville. Chief among these is Stacker Pentecost (Idras Elba) formerly leader of the Jaeger program who believes that we fall down so that we can learn how to get up, not so that we can learn how to crawl under the nearest bush. He recruits one of the pilots from the doomed sortie mentioned above (Raleigh Becket played with fresh faced gusto by Charlie Hunnam) along with a young woman who has her own history with the Kaiju (Mako Mori played to wide eyed perfection by Rinko Kikuchi) to resurrect an obsolete Jaeger and take one more shot at the beasts from 20,000 fathoms (so to speak).

It's all clearly comprehensible, beautifully crafted and devoid of the cynicism and overkill that made the last 2 Transformers movies such abject failures. But it's not just 2 hours of pandering to the adolescent within either for amidst the awe and chaos Pacific Rim remains responsible film making as del Toro and Co present a message that speaks to the values of persistence, co-operation and keeping a positive attitude. All qualities young people must take to heart if they're to face the real monsters of life with their heads on straight.

To his credit (and as visual homage to those films that inspired him) del Toro pulls back during many of the big action sequences and lets our imaginations swim in the context. A giant's only awesome if we can appreciate it's scale and you can only effectively convey that by pulling back. As a result the big set pieces, the battle royales, the rumbles in the (concrete) jungle have a sense of visual conhesion, jaw-dropping awesomeness and believability I've never seen the likes of before. In short they raise the bar for all giant monster movies to come. GDT's natural optimism also serves notice to blockbuster makers everywhere that you don't need anti-heroes navigating Freudian nightmares of the soul to engage viewers in the year 2013. It's clear that the director believes in people both individually and collectively and as such Pentacost's signature line "Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!" could well serve as del Toro's own declaration to his fellow film makers that it's time to reset your gaze on what can be instead of what you fear will be.

An enormous amount of credit must go to Art Directors Elinor Rose Galbraith and Richard L. Johnson along with the rank and file in the effects department for the outstanding job they've done bringing these mythic creatures to phantasmagorical life. In addition the film never swerves into future-as-living-hell visual negativity the would undercut the hopeful message. Sure there's lots of destruction. Sure there's a sense of resignation swirling in the air but at the same time the story here is not being played out in "the desert of the real".   

del Toro dedicates his marvelous giants in the streets film to Ishiro Honda of Godzilla fame and the recently deceased Ray Harryhausen who spoke to and pried open the imaginations of innumerable kids-of-all-ages with their visionary embrace of the mythic some 60 years ago. It's a welcome and fitting dedication and somewhere those 2 giants of the imagination are watching Pacific Rim and smiling.

Verdict: ★★★★★


4 comments:

  1. Not perfect in any way, but still a bunch of fun if you're willing to accept monsters and robots brawling for over 2 hours. Good review Chris.

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  2. Just saw it again last night and while I'll agree it's not perfect it is an incredibly well crafted piece of work that, for me, stands head and shoulders above most other, similar fare ("Transformers II and III", Emmerich's "Godzilla", "Cloverfield").

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  3. Perfect Review... This movie was a 40 year wait come true for my inner 10 year old.

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  4. Thanks. I was afraid it would collapse under its own weight the way Emmerich's "Godzilla" did; but it never does.

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