Pacific Rim is supposedly visionary director Guillermo del Toro’s love letter to the Kaiju films he grew up watching, his 7 year old self having been “transported” by this strange genre of film coming out of Japan. The influences of monster movies such as Godzilla are clearly evident in the scope and design of Pacific Rim, making it film that stands out - if not always for the best reasons.
The central conceit of the film is fairly novel (at least to Western audiences), monsters are coming from a fissure in the Pacific Rim, and Earth’s human’s have banded together to build giant robots - or Jaeger - in order to protect themselves. Veteran Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) must overcome his traumatic past in order to help the Human resistance. This setup leads to some monumental battles, treating viewers to a truly awesome sight of organic alien invaders vs steel behemoth defenders, and while the plot develops with a whimper in the background, the film’s major selling point is the big fight sequences.
Big is the only word for the fight scenes in Pacific Rim. Gargantuan, colossal, enormous - these are all good words too, but really they are just big. The special effects team have pulled off a great feat in putting these battles on screen, and while I only saw the film on a laptop, I can imagine the effect of seeing Kaiju and Jaeger clash on the cinema screen is something to behold. The Kaiju look spectacular, it is evident that the effects team were all genre fans and put a lot of love and attention into creating an alien race that are not just some uniform legion of cannon fodder (looking at you Avengers) but in fact are individually crafted killing machines. While del Toro made this film as homage to the monster movies of his youth, I was raised on Power Rangers and Transformers, so the draw for me was the Jaegers. Apparently close to 100 different Jaeger were designed, but only a handful appear on screen. The Jaeger that we do see are easily differentiated, and ridiculous as this may sound, look like they could actually work. Of course I’m no engineer, and the mumbo jumbo about neural links between copilots is pure sci-fi guff (to my knowledge anyway), but the actual Jaeger click and clunk in a very satisfying way, they look like they really were cobbled together by a Human race on the brink of extinction. Will the effects look dated in time? Perhaps, although a lot of the fight sequences happen underwater or in the dark, so some of the rougher edges are disguised. For the most part, Pacific Rim’s marketing strategy of “roll up and watch big things duke it out for some reason” looks absolutely fantastic.
Of course the Jaeger and Kaiju are just two thirds of the Pacific Rim’s cast, and unfortunately the human third lets the side down slightly. This is not to say there are not good performances, Idris Elba is solid, and Rinko Kikuchi emits genuine emotion and personality, in fact their relationship is one of the strongest in the film. Charlie Hunnam is likeable enough as the lead, although he never really gets the chemistry going with Kikuchi, and perhaps this is because their screen time is limited by the occasional giant monster battle, but for copilots who are supposed to mind meld or whatever, we are given little reason to believe in their relationship. The rest of the Jaeger pilots get relatively short shrift as far as script is concerned, and this is a real shame. I was put in mind of the World War 2 films, where the squad would always be ethnically diverse to represent how everyone pitched in for the war effort. Similarly in Pacific Rim the Human resistance in made up of characters from all around the world, and while for once the Australians get a look in (albeit via some dodgy accents) the rest of the international cast are poorly served. While watching the interactions between the pilots, bravado and nerves creating tension, I was put in mind of Ron Howard’s F1 Drama Rush. I wish the film had focused more on this aspect of its world and reaped the dramatic dividends, however all too often the human interaction is sidelined in favour of a Kaiju-Jaeger showdown.
It is obvious that a lot of thought has gone into the mythology of Pacific Rim, there is a history to the Human-Kaiju war, and even some musings on glorification of violence and the commercialisation of war. However, I found myself wishing a little more care and attention had gone into the script, which instead relies on cliches and stereotypes all to often. Case in point is the ‘research division’ of the human resistance. While Charlie Day (and I am a little biased here as I like the guy) does something fairly interesting with the science geek persona, he is accompanied by a sidekick stiff upper lip British guy, it was cringeworthy to watch their interactions. All too often what could have been compelling clashes between the Jaeger pilots boiled down to macho staring contests and daddy/brother issues. Obviously the film never pretends to have the depth or sophistication of Pan’s Labyrinth, but there were times when the the dialogue and plot felt like nothing more than string to tie together the fight sequences - and that’s not good enough, especially as it seems as though del Toro has created a rich world worth exploring.
All I heard about Pacific Rim at the time of its release was that it was robots fighting monsters, and if that was your thing then you’d enjoy it. I found this analysis off-putting, and only agreed to watch this film after it was recommended by a friend. Well, robots-fighting-monsters it is, but it is spectacularly well designed and extremely good natured. There are characters in there with potential, which is disappointingly not realised, and there is a world that poses some genuinely interesting questions about how humans respond to threats. Overall the film fails to be anything more than surface, but it is surface to marvel at. With a sequel in the works, perhaps I’ll get to explore the world more after all.
WHO: Rinko Kikuchi, more of her please.
WHAT: The Jaeger designs, I want one.
WHY: Robots-Fighting-Monsters!
WHEN: You’ve stockpiled the sugary snacks and its 1am.
(Fan Art from: http://fashionnaction.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/mako-mori-pacific-rim-fan-art-by.html)
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