For all the bad press Michael Bay gets for Transformers — incomprehensibly edited, poorly acted, overly long, transparently cynical — there is one remarkable thing: Somehow, despite all odds, Bay made giant robot battles a thing of pure boredom. Pacific Rim saves the concept by making giant robots, well, fun again. Maybe it comes down to a subtle difference: Transformers is made by people who think people will pay money to see giant robots fight; Pacific Rim is made by people who genuinely find giant robots to be the coolest thing ever.
There’s no point pretending that Pacific Rim isn’t a $200 million mega-monolith of special effects. Nor should we pretend it reinvents the wheel. Director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy) crafts his spectacle of monsters battling humanity from classic archetypes of character and situation. There is really nothing here you haven’t seen in Star Wars or Independence Day, or Homer’s The Iliad, for that matter.
But gawddammit, it’s tons of fun. Whereas Bay soaks his movies in scorn for the theme, del Toro brings childlike enthusiasm and monster-centric glee. For good reason is his tale of hideous leviathan kaiju versus iron giants dedicated to stop-motion creature master Ray Harryhausen and Godzilla maestro Ishiro Honda: Del Toro simply loves what he does.
Nicely breaking tradition from the usual “all-American” route, del Toro goes international in casting, tossing Brit Charlie Hunnam (TV’s Sons of Anarchy) in as the token heroic American who pilots a robot, teaming him with spunky Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) and allowing the towering Idris Elba (Prometheus) the rare privilege of keeping his British accent. Throw in a comedic pair of bickering scientists (Charlie Day and Burn Gorman, both very funny in the C-3P0 and R2-D2 roles) and a slimy opportunist played with aplomb by genre veteran Ron Perlman (again, Hellboy), and you’ve got broad, yet effective characters played at perfect pitch by all.
And as for the real reason most people will watch Pacific Rim? The monsters are enormous, the robots huge, the effects freaking incredible, and the battles directed with clarity and verve. These things have weight to them. The punch-ups are epic, and show Bay how it’s done. Not once was I ever confused as to what was punching what.
So yeah, I loved it, if for no other reason than this: At the reveal of the first kaiju, 30 seconds in, I was grinning from ear to ear, and I never stopped. Except when, no kidding, I honestly choked up when the Aussie father/son pilot combo said their goodbyes to each other. Huge lump in my throat. —Corey Redekop
Pacific Rim delivered on everything I expected. And by that giant robots punching giant monsters. Voltron vs. Gamera! These people complaining about character development are part of the no fun brigade.
Yup–nice review. The theater I was in burst into spontaneous applause–twice!–at these beautiful moments during the fights. There was real glee in the staging and delivery.
It was also a delight to have my ten year old son turn to me, after, and say now he knew why I hated the Transformer movies.
This one has now been moved to the top of my “Must See” list. Giant robots fighting giant monsters from the see — what’s not to love!