Awesome final trailer.

I mean, granted, the concept of the film looks so retarded that it makes Michael Bay's films look like the films of Federico Fellini ("Let's not have fighter jets drop bombs against these giant monsters--No, let's PUNCH them, and for that, we need giant robots that take years to build, and pilots with fighting skills..."), but the trailer for it does look impressive.

Probably one of the most predictable movies I've ever seen but it still managed to be relatively entertaining.

SPOILERS!

The prolog starts out in present time with a sort of dimensional rift opening over the Marianas Trench (I believe) and a huge alien coming out of it tearing stuff up. We were able to defeat the first few monsters using current means, but eventually it was decided to build huge robots piloted by two people, where they have to 'meld minds' to operate it, and that seemed to work, until the creatures started adapting to that and increasing their frequency. The only logical solution is to find a way to close the portal.

Seriously, it seemed as though TPTB used some sort of plot checklist; you could see almost every 'twist' coming from a mile away, but that didn't ruin the movie for me, it may for some though.

In brief: Every bit as retarded as the trailers made it seem.

I didn’t have a burning desire to see this film, though I will admit that I harbored some curiosity about it, given the impressive-looking spectacle of special effects indicated in the trailers, and a statement by one person who said it was “awesome”. The fact that Guillermo del Toro directed it is certainly a plus, though ultimately, it boiled down to the fact that by the time my friend Edwin and I got together Sunday evening, it was the most appealing choice with a time showing left at the theater, as we were too late to see Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 or The Heat. (That, and the fact that The Lone Ranger has been getting torn apart by everyone who has seen it.)

As it turns out, the film’s entire content, much as I inferred from the trailers, can be boiled down to five words:

---“Giant Robots Versus Giant Monsters.”

That’s it.

When I say the “the film’s entire content”, mind you, I’m not being capricious with my words. That’s all the film is about. Everything about the film that isn’t giant robots pummeling giant monsters is just filler meant to justify that high-concept, one-line, gimmicky premise, one that could’ve been written on a napkin by del Toro while watching one of his kids smash two of his favorite toys together, which pretty much embodies the film’s sensibility—assuming one can use the word “sensibility” when discussing this mindless roller coaster on celluloid. Mind you, being inspired by a gimmick, in and of itself, doesn’t necessarily doom a story. The idea of taking several of Marvel Comics’ premiere superheroes that star in their own solo stories, and having them cross over by coming together as a team, for example, is essentially a high-concept gimmick. But that doesn’t mean a good storyteller can’t tell a story with that premise with interesting characters who affect one another, whose actions affect the public, whose responses to the story’s major threat aren’t influenced by—and in turn influence—their personalities, and who can touch the audience on an emotional level. Some of the genre’s most beloved franchises started out as stories that could essentially be described as high-concepts or gimmicks. But that’s because in way or another, those franchises harbored ideas or qualities that managed to transcend their shorthand, capsulized descriptions.

Pacific Rim, however, harbors no such ideas at its non-existent heart. It does not feature characters of any meaningful depth or originality. Much as Man of Steel contrasts with the Richard Donner Superman films, we do not really get a sense that the characters really care about the people they’re ostensibly protecting, let alone that the Jaegers prevent more property damage and loss of life than they cause. We get no sense of what motivates the characters, how their interactions change them on a fundamental level, or how they affect the public. The film simply takes a premise that’s idiotic on its face, and pads it with scenes that are A. Cliched B. Uninteresting and therefore make the non-fighting scenes drag, and C. Make no sense.

Let’s start with the idiotic premise.

When these giant kaiju first start coming out of the interdimensional portal at the bottom of the ocean known as the Breach, governments naturally throw fighter jets at them, which is what they should be doing. While it takes a considerable pounding before the jets manage to kill it—tens of thousands of lives are said to be lost in the process—the fact is, they do get the job done. But, the narrator tells us, humans needed a better weapon to fight them, and this is where the giant robots, called Jaegers (from the German word for “hunter”) come in. It’s also where the creators inform us that any semblance of intelligence is about to go right out the window, as the entire premise of the giant robots is apparently predicated on the following, ridiculous-yet-unspoken notion:

---Punching giant monsters is a better way to kill them than with bombs.

Think about that for a second. The humans can simply drop nukes on these monsters before they even reach the shore, or they can simply use the most powerful non-nuclear bombs in their arsenal (thermobaric bombs), which should incinerate the suckers. We already have bombers in our arsenal, which are pretty efficient, and since most of the kaiju are limited to the water or the ground (we only see one in the film’s second act that can fly), the pilots are fairly safe. Hell, we’re already using unmanned drone bombers today, so by the time frame of this movie, pilots could essentially be moot, so their safety wouldn’t be an issue.

But no.

Instead, they decide that robots the size of skyscrapers, which must take years to merely to design, let alone build (Idris Elba’s character, Stacker, informs us that the first one was rushed out in 14 months) which punch the monsters in the face, and which require pilots with great martial arts skills, are a “better weapon” than such bombs, though its is never explained to us why. When you go bear hunting, you take a gun with you. You don’t bone up on your kung fu. But we’re just supposed to accept this, without question, simply in order to justify the shots of the giant robots doing judo flips with giant monsters. When we do see fighter jets taking on one of the monsters in a flashback sequence showing Mako as a little girl, they use their machine guns only. But when we see the main character’s Jaeger Gipsy Danger appear on the scene, the Jaeger punches the monster, and then opens up a chamber on its chest with six cannons that kill the beast with bombs. Again, I ask, why couldn’t the fighter jets just fire those bombs themselves? Why does that initial “punch” by the robot help?

For that matter, why do Jaeger pilots need to connect their minds to the Jaeger, let alone each other? The Jaeger’s movements are pretty much simple: Walk. Punch. And that’s it. How complex are their movements that a simple virtual reality set up like what we have with modern-day video games and flight simulators isn’t sufficient?

This wouldn’t have been so bad if there were something under the Michael Bay-ish surface of this movie, but there isn’t. What we do have are boilerplate genre clichés so beaten into the ground that they’re dating Chris Brown. Let’s see:

---*Ace hotshot traumatized by past tragedy must learn to put aside their fears to perform whatever extreme physical activity in which they excel in order to save the day: Check (Twice, actually, since both this applies to both Raleigh and Mako.
---*A rival starts trouble with the main character hotshot, because he thinks he’s dangerous/a loose cannon/whatever, but comes to eventually respect the hotshot: Check. This is such a shamelessly overused trope that the writer of both Top Gun and Team America should’ve gotten a royalty for this.
---*A black supporting character in a science fiction film ends up sacrificing himself. Check.

None of this is engaging, and therefore, they have the effect of bringing the story to a screeching halt, and even on their own terms, much of it makes no sense. When we learn, for example, that the Jaeger program is being terminated within eight months, in favor of a coastal wall program, Del Toro and co-screenwriter Travis Beacham actually had the opportunity to make the stakes seem important, and give a sense of urgency to the proceedings. But instead, they establish rather early on that the coastal walls provide about as much protection from the kaiju as popsicle sticks. Putting aside the question of why the Powers That Be thought those walls would work (perhaps this is part of the kaiju’s “adaptability”), doesn’t doing this remove the threat of the Jaeger program’s shutdown? And why is the status of the Jaeger program never clarified or updated after the coastal walls are revealed to be ineffective?

The robot-monster fight scenes are impressive. The film should get a nomination for visual effects and art direction for the monster designs alone. But these elements are impressive in the same way that fan films like Ryan v. Dorkman are impressive: Something that’s interesting to watch for several minutes, but not something in which I’d want to invest over 2 hours of my time and ten dollars. As storytelling goes, Pacific Rim is just empty calories, like an entire meal of whipped cream. It falls into the same pantheon of films as The Core, Transformers and the films of Roland Emmerich, a standard to which it is disappointing to see Guillermo del Toro aspiring.

---NITS & NOTES
Why does Mako sometimes speak Japanese and sometimes speak English during her initial scenes?

How was it that young Mako was the only person left after Stacker destroyed the kaiju attacking Japan? I assume that was the reason why he got out of his Jaeger.

I don’t buy the smile on young Mako’s face when she sees Stacker emerge from his Jaeger. A little girl in that position might be relieved, but there’s no way she’s be beaming like that. More likely she’d be stoic due to being in shock after the trauma she had just been through.

At the end of the movie, after Gipsy Danger enters the Breach, mission control is still able to track them and communicate with them, and even detect when the Breach on the other side of the Throat has been destroyed. How are they able to do this, given that the Breach is an interdimensional portal?

How in the world does Chau survive being gobbled up by that baby kaiju? Are we supposed to believe that it didn’t chew him up before swallowing him? Or that it didn’t yet have teeth? Or that merely the bite force of its jaws would not have been enough to crush every bone in his body? Hell, the bite force of a dinky ol’ tiger from our dimension is enough to crack a human skull!

Luigi: The robot-monster fight scenes are impressive.
This is primarily what I meant when I said it was 'relatively entertaining'

LN: What we do have are boilerplate genre clichés so beaten into the ground that they’re dating Chris Brown.
Not only accurate but also hilarious!

the Gipsy punches the monster, and then opens up a chamber on its chest with six cannons that kill the beast with bombs.
Although your point is still a good one the jaeger with the chest rockets is the one piloted by the Russian duo. Gipsy Danger has the plasma cannons behind its hands.

How was it that young Mako was the only person left after Stacker destroyed the kaiju attacking Japan?
I wondered that too. She was the only one running around the streets. I don't recall even hearing people screaming.

A few things I noted during the movie: they make a big deal out of the whole drifting process but it seems anybody can be paired up and you can 'meld' with a giant alien without much issue.

Stacker has some affliction we're suppose to wonder and care about that was apparently caused by poor reactor shielding from earlier jaeger models. I don't buy that at all; this isn't the 1950's. Just because they were rushed into production doesn't mean they'd cut corners with nuclear material.

Speaking of nuclear material; one of the later kaijus used a type of EMP rendering a jaeger and much of HK without power. Gipsy Danger apparently isn't effected by this because it's 'analog'. Um, just because it has its own reactor doesn't mean it isn't 'digital'. I'm not sure the writers know what the difference is and how an EMP works. And, if I'm understanding this scene correctly, why don't the other jaegers have their own reactors as well?

There are several instances where the jaegers are fighting in water, yet their movements don't appear to be hindered in any way by this. The plasma cannon on the Gipsy Danger has very inconsistent charging times; and why, if it has its own reactor, does it have a "clip" of charges?

The jaeger with the chest rockets is the one piloted by the Russian duo.
Thanks, I've corrected it.

And yeah, I noted the bit about the radiation sickness while watching the film, but didn't write any of my things down, and forgot it by the time I got home.

If you liked Pacific rim, you will love Atlantic rim

Ok, maybe not.

And yes, it's every bit as bad as it sounds, I couldn't get past the first 30 minutes.

That, and the fact that The Lone Ranger has been getting torn apart by everyone who has seen it.
I haven't The Lone Ranger yet but from what little checking I've done it seems for the most part people are enjoying it. Sure critics haven't been impressed with TLR but I can't imagine how that story could be worse than Pacific Rim, which has received noticeably more favorable reviews. I don't doubt that TLR's plot is at least a bit more complex than giant robots versus giant aliens but I wouldn't think it possible to be anywhere near as clichéd. Sorry for the rant and off topic post

You're talking about a summer Disney blockbuster. Of course it can be more cliched.

How was it that young Mako was the only person left after Stacker destroyed the kaiju attacking Japan?

and

I don’t buy the smile on young Mako’s face when she sees Stacker emerge from his Jaeger. A little girl in that position might be relieved, but there’s no way she’s be beaming like that.

Well, this is not how things happened, this is how Mako remembers them, years later, so those scenes are bound to have incongruities.

As a Kaiju is lifting a damaged and apparently helpless Gipsy Danger high into the sky, Mako reveals an upgrade to the old Jaeger, a retractable sword blade that proves devastatingly effective against the Kaiju. Why the hell didn't she use that thing from the start and why hasn't it been installed on ALL the Jaegers?

Since the Kaijus were all comming from the one Rift, were detectable as they emerged and their arrival could even be reasonably well predicted, why not install a defense system AT the Rift, like targetting the beast with a nuke BEFORE it had a chance to move out very far?