If you’ve ever been to this site before, you know that we like Big Shiny Robot!s. It’s kind of our thing. If you’ve read the site for a long time, you’d probably know that we’re big fans of Guillermo Del Toro as well.
It’s no wonder we’d be interested in this film.
I’ve been interested in it from the beginning, given Del Toro’s body of work, but I’ve tried to stay as far away from the hype as possible. I’ve watched a couple of trailers and had an extensive conversation with Travis Beacham, the writer of the film, but that’s about it.
But even staying away, I couldn’t help but feel some glimmer of excitement before I saw the film.
Now, settling into this movie, and having little frame of reference and expecting nothing more than giant robots fighting giant monsters, I wasn’t expecting a well-written, smart take on all the classic summer movie tropes. I wasn’t expecting to love this film so much. I wasn’t expecting to be completely blown away. I wasn’t expecting such a wholly engrossing film.
Pacific Rim tells the story of a world ravaged by monsters that come up out of the sea without warning and terrorize the population. The human response is to build giant robots to fight them.
That’s about all I was hoping to get. I was surprised to find a well-constructed world with that lived-in feel we all hope so much for in science fiction films. I was also surprised to find gravitas in the shared sacrifice of destruction caused by the Kaiju. That was, for me, one of the chief problems of Man of Steel. We were supposed to buy the human response to the Kryptonian invasion and instead we were given two dopey military men and they worked to stop Zod. The public in danger was represented by Perry White and we weren’t given a sense whatsoever of the human cost. Where Man of Steel failed in that regard, Pacific Rim knocks this out of the park. When a Kaiju attack happens, there’s a cost to all of humanity. Del Toro came as close to capturing national sentiment from something like, say, 9/11, on a global scale in this film. The world came together to fight this and it’s represented in all of the choices made about the film. Even if you like Man of Steel, you’ll have to admit that it’s simply done better here.
Del Toro imbued this film with the visceral feeling that ALL OF HUMANITY was at stake here, and that we could very well lose.
The film establishes its world and the stakes of it quickly and we’re left caring about who wins in the the fight between the giant robots (called Jaegers) and the Kaiju.
We’re also given a hero’s journey story, a few of them, from different characters, that all build to one of the most satisfying climaxes I’ve ever seen in a summer movie.
Every trope you can imagine from a big summer movie is on display in this film, from the rousing pre-battle speech and the gruff jock with a problem, to the down on his luck hero getting verbally abused by his commanding officer. Every twist and every turn of the classic summer film, which seems to be a genre on its own, is paid homage to in Pacific Rim, but it’s made fresh in every instance.
For most summer movies like this, Transformers, Battleship, etc. you’d be told, “Turn your brain off and you’ll enjoy it.” Not so with Pacific Rim. It’s a brilliant, careful reconstruction of this type of film and you’re rewarded for thinking deeper about things. After three days of processing this film, everything seems to get better with continued mental digestion, always a good sign for any film.
That’s not to say Pacific Rim doesn’t look pretty or punch hard enough. This movie is gorgeous and the fight scenes are spectacular. There are so many moments where the audience is practically begged to stand and cheer, but we were all too respectful of each other to actually do it.
Another thing I loved about this film was how it treated women and minorities. The woman in this film isn’t a love interest, she’s not a damsel in distress, and she’s not white. Mako, the female lead, is strong, kick-ass, and has to overcome reservations of her fighting on the frontline. She proves herself more than capable, though, and makes me twice as happy knowing I’m going to be bringing my daughter to this film. The other strongest supporting character is played by Idris Elba, who is the badass Marshal Stacker Pentecost. He gets so much cool stuff to do and be the guy in charge of everything.
It’s so much fun, it’s disgusting.
Seriously, this film made me happy in a way I haven’t been able to be in the theatre for a long time. Even Iron Man 3 didn’t provide it. It was so clearly put together by people who have a love of monster movies, but also great films. There were nods to classics like Chinatown, but also spiritual nods to things like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. It was just a well-told, cleanly written story.
Hands down, this is the best summer movie of 2013, and I don’t see any on the horizon that can touch it.
The only question is: how soon until Marvel throws money at Del Toro to step into the Marvel Universe? Could you imagine him directing a picture with Dormammu as the bad guy?
I just got the chills.
Pacific Rim is not without its problems, but all of its enjoyable features more than make up for it. I’m giving this movie a perfect score.
See it, now and often. If it fails, then it’s your fault they don’t make good movies anymore.