Pacific Rim

Starring

Idris Elba as Stacker Pentecost

Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket

Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori

Charlie Day as Dr Newton Geizler

Ron Perlman as Hannibal Chau

Movie viewed in IMAX 3D on 13 July, 2013

I went into this movie after stellar reviews from friends and critics. I was ready to be absolutely blown away by the sheer power of awesome.

Well, the special effects were above top-drawer. Everything else? Less so.

A bit of "plot" summary: In a refreshing new take on alien invasion, the 250 foot tall invaders - called "Kaiju", a Japanese word meaning "strange creature" - come from a dimensional rift in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. These kaiju run roughshod over Earth as only giant monsters can, until we decided to fight back by building giant robots called Evangelion Jaegers (German for "hunters") to kill them. And kill them we did! Sure, cities like San Francisco get the everlovin' shit knocked out of them, but WE KILT THEM ALIENS GOOD *hock ptoo*. The robots are piloted by humans who use a neural interface to control the machine's movements, but the sheer size of the machines is too much for a single human brain. Instead, they use teenagers a two-pilot system to share the neural load in a process called "drifting" that links the minds of the pilots. Their thoughts are your thoughts, your memories are their memories... it's all very Vulcan.

In the movie's opening, we are introduced to the pilots of a Jaeger called Gipsy Danger. The pilots, the improbably named Raleigh Becket and his older brother Yancy, are sent out into the ocean off the coast of Alaska to fight a giant monster. Their commanding officer (played by the awesome Idris Elba) orders them to ignore the fate of a 10-man fishing boat in favour of saving the millions of lives this Kaiju will end should it make landfall.

So guess what the Becket boys do?

In the ensuing chaos, the Kaiju rips half of Gipsy Danger's head off and kills Yancy. As Raleigh will repeat almost as often as Spider-Man blathered on about great power and great responsibility, he was still in Yancy's head when he died. He felt all the pain, fear, blah blah blah. Raleigh manages to control Gipsy Danger on his own long enough to get back to land where he's found by a boy and his grandfather. Then TIME PASSES.

It's seven years later. Half-Life 3 still isn't out. Becket is still in Alaska, helping to build "the Wall of Life", a waste of fictional taxpayers' fictional money that is supposed to stop a Kaiju dead in its tracks. Stacker shows up and uses his Powers of Motivational Speech to convince the PTSD poster boy Becket to rejoin the fight, which was about as difficult as convincing me to eat bacon.

After some more inspiring orchestral music, Our Heroes arrive at The Hall of Justice, or something. The UN (with a Canadian representative! He even gets a line! WOO WE'VE BEEN VALIDATED) has decided that the effective way to kill the Kaiju is bad because sometimes stuff gets wrecked, so they're gonna go with the wall thing (SPOILER: The walls don't work). Stacker ain't got time for that, so The Hall of Justice is now "the resistance" and they've got a few Jaeger allies from around the world who, aside from Grizzled Australian Veteran and His Asshole Son, barely get any lines.

As we're being introduced to the mush-mouthed Aussies (seriously, could ANYONE figure out what they were saying?), we're also introduced to a cute little Japanese character named Mako Mori. She's our token Neon Genesis Evangelion tribute. Take a look at her and tell me she doesn't look familiar...

Google "Rei Ayanami" if you don't get it. Just make sure Safe Search is on.

Turns out "Miss Mori's" family got offed by a Kaiju and she Wants Revenge. Stacker ain't got time for that either, and is Dead Set Against letting Mako co-pilot the rebuilt Gipsy Danger with Becket until Becket says "dude, seriously". Then it's on like Donkey Kong until both Becket and Mako drift and have flashbacks to their traumatic backstories. This is when we find out that Stacker had time to adopt the young Mako, and... Jesus, is this REALLY the plot?

I'm really struggling to figure out what was good about this movie other than the special effects. LucasFilm's Industrial Light & Magic outdid themselves, that's for certain. The only effects complaint I have is that it's obvious the 3D was tacked on at the end, because there's no obvious scenes that utilized it. The 3D phenomenon that was started by Avatar has turned into a way for studios to make an extra $3 on tickets and stymie people with video cameras in the audience.

This film also suffers from "here's a guy who's integral to the plot but we can't be arsed to tell you his name" with the two scientists tasked to Find Out What The Kaiju Want. There's the weird British George McFly/Sheldon Cooper fusion (turns out his name's Herman) and Screams Almost As Much As Shia LeBeouf Guy (or "Newton", as IMDB.com tells me). Then there's "supporting cast we introduced to be either ethnic stereotypes or cannon fodder", aka the Russian and Chinese Jaeger pilots. The Russians frown a lot and act aloof! The Chinese guys are REALLY good at ping-pong!

As you may have guessed, this movie disappointed me. Perhaps it was my friends on Facebook losing their shit over how much they loved what they saw. Maybe I just expect too much from director Guillermo del Toro. Maybe I like a little steak with my sizzle. Don't get me wrong, it's a Perfectly Serviceable Popcorn Flick. Reviews, both critical and from your friends, might make you think this is the Second Coming of Star Wars (the original, not the prequels) or Indiana Jones. It's not. It's fun, but Pacific Rim left me with a kind of empty feeling and wishing it could have been more.

FINAL REVIEW
Pacific Rim

3 snowflakes out of 5

TL;DR - Come for the special effects. Just don't expect too much more.