Pacific Rim

More Beneath The Surface

Go, go, Power Rangers!

Film fans will not be unfamiliar with the concept of gigantic monsters rampaging through cities, leaving an incredible amount of destruction in their path.  Even though most of the current youth first encountered this type of overblown action on Saturday morning TV with the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the most famous of all these monsters could be considered to be Godzilla (originally called Gojira), whose début in 1954 led the way for countless sequels and imitations to follow behind him.  Enough time passed for the mutated lizard to go State-side and in 1998, Roland Emmerich brought Godzilla to American shores, where he destroyed New York City instead of Tokyo. This feat was repeated and homaged by Cloverfield ten years later, and this week auteur Mexican director Guillermo del Toro releases Pacific Rim.

Pacific Rim gets to the heart of the matter very quickly and rarely moves from the core idea for the duration of the film; evil monsters are coming to destroy us, so let's build gigantic robots to fight them.  Every ten-year old's dream movie. And every adult with the mind of a ten-year old. *ahem* 

To illustrate the size of both the Jaegers and Kaiju...

The film's antagonists are referred to as 'kaiju', meaning 'strange creature' or 'monster', and they are hell bent on destroying humankind.  To retaliate, humans put aside their differences and create the Jaeger program; 250 foot tall robots, operated by two human drivers who are connected via a 'neural bridge'. Our hero is Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam), a Jaeger pilot who lost his brother to a Kaiju's destruction and vows to seek revenge on the monsters who destroyed his life.  To help him are Idris Elba's Army Marshall and Rinko Kikuchi's Jaeger co-pilot Mako Mori.

As close to The Mountains of Madness
we or del Toro will get for some time...

Now let's get the obvious out of the way; the Kaiju vs Jaeger battles are out of this world.  They are visually breathtaking and awe-inspiring.  Not only because of the beautiful design of both opponents, but the roller-coaster rides that are the battles are joys to behold.  Most people have dismissed the idea of the film because it comes across as Transformers or Real Steel and there is an argument to envoke the memory of these previous robot fighting machine films.  However, neither Transformers or Real Steel had the soul that lives in this film or are handled in the same way as Pacific Rim. 

Transformers: Racism In Disguise

When the Jaeger pilots are outside their mechanical suits, the repetitive strategy meetings and inspirational battle-cries can be described as quite nuts-and-bolts, but when they are inside the machines, the fights are captivating and easy to follow. With Transformers, the director Michael Bay simply wanted as much confusing, visually-complicated carnage on the screen without caring for the background of the characters or their intricate designs, the exact opposite of del Toro's obvious dedication to this project.  Each Kaiju has been carefully worked on and intricately designed, given their own personalities and traits.  It's only a small thing, but as is often the case with Guillermo del Toro's films, the small things make the biggest impact.

However as I previously stated, when the actors try to inject some human elements to the story, the film begins to falter and slow down.  The lead characters rarely inspire any empathy or adulation, as they appear quite two-dimensional and simply a method of del Toro trying to represent all corners of the world coming together in one small military unit. Although, since the film clearly knows it's not trying to be diplomatic and earth-shatteringly brilliant in it's dramatics, it can be forgiven in casting a blockhead jock as the main hero, a honour-bound, strong-willed Asian as it's female heroine and two bumbling cartoonish scientists, hell-bent on figuring out the Kaiju's mysteries. On the other hand, the two inspired casting decisions were the del Toro-regular Ron Perlman as the selfish black-market dealer Hannibal Chau and Idris Elba, finally using his real English accent on the big screen, as the strong, powerful Stacker Pentecost. (How amazing are those names?!)

These two could take on the Kaiju without Jaegers

It's not going to win any awards, but Pacific Rim is simply a rollercoaster of fun. Whether you want to relive childhood memories of the Power Rangers, watch Mr Elba chew the scenery as only he can do or see some of the most imaginative film monsters for quite some time now. It can be seen as both a great creature feature and just a mindless action flick. Feel free to switch off and watch the carnage or pay attention to a film that has had such intricate care and attention.  Michael Bay, take note.

Rating - 8/10