So this past Saturday I saw Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro's newest movie, in where Transformers fight the Cloverfield monster. Also, consider everything beneath this text spoilers.
So, PxR, piqued my interest when I first heard about it, because it seemed like one of those turn-your-brain-off-explosions-and-tits movies, but more importantly, it was a 100% thoroughbred B-movie with a Hollywood budget. For those of you who don't know, I love B-Movies. My long-abandoned (and hopefully soon-to-be rebooted) series It Hurts So Good showcases reviews of a couple of my favorite shitty movies.
So, like I said, Specific Rim is a fully fledged B-movie. I mean, if suddenly an extra-dimensional portal opened up at the bottom of the Pacific and giant Earth-shattering aliens started pouring out, what do you think Earth's first line of defense would be? Arm every border with giant guns and move everyone underground? No. No. That would be too easy. We should create equally giant Earth-shattering robots powered by nuclear reactors and controlled neurally by two people at a time. I want to know who the guy in the UN military base was just nervously glancing around after the world's brightest got idea after idea shot down, and in a moment of solemn silence after the last genius' plan was denied just piped up and said, "Hey guys... Giant. Robots.", and then sat there as the entire auditorium exploded into cheering and applause.
This is supposed to be a review, so it's time for reviewy things. Everything looks totally slick, and del Toro's monster design was pretty well done, but not amazing. The Kaiju (japanese for monster and what the aliens are called in the movie) were all heavily based of of common real-world animals, usually with two or three animals smooshed together. There was a saw shark/ swordfish, a frilled lizard/ bat, rhino/ crab, and a sharktopus/ Balrog, among others. As the movie went on, even though each Kaiju had a different look, they quickly lost their otherworldly mystique and terror, and became kind of boring. I will admit though, when the lizard/ bat took flight for the first time, I made an internal fuck yes this is amazing.
So, monster design, mediocre. Acting? Also mediocre, but hell, this ain't a Scorsese flick. You don't watch Prolific Rim for the acting. The story and characters were pretty alright, I guess. The story, if you haven't gotten it by now, goes like this.
- OMG, monsters!
- Make giant robots
- ????
- Profit
- Main character suffers sudden loss of brother
- Government shuts down giant robot military program because "LOL FUCK YOU, EARTH"
- More monsters!
- 7 years later, renegade Major herds giant robots and giant robot pilots (including the main character who had now moved on into Hong Kong to keep fighting
- Operation: Nuke The Shit Out Of The Portal Is Totally A Rad Plan And Will Totally Work, Guys is go
- More monsters!
- Punch things with giant rocket powered fists
- Nuke portal
- Happily ever after!
So in there is also the explanation of every main and supporting character's super grimdark, I fight a war on two fronts, against the monsters out there and against the monsters within myself backstories, and the worst romantic sub-plot ever, where at the end of the movie, there is only an awkward as balls half eskimo kiss and a totally uncomfortable looking hug from like, four feet apart.
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| It was about as painfully awkward as this photo. |
But, there's also this:
Yes, that's Charlie Day as a tatted as fuck scientist. My goal in life is to pretty much be that, so his character easily became my favorite part of the movie. And his pairing with Burn Gorman's equally hilarious bookworm/ math nerd Gottlieb was some of the movies most entertaining character chemistry. Above even Day and Gorman's characters were the Hansens, an Australian father and son who piloted one of the giant robots together. Honestly, Pacific and the Rims would have been really, really awesome if it took the egotistical hot-shot son and his level headed, stern, and no-bullshit dad as the main characters and played up their relationship rather than Blankface McGee and Ms. Not-actually-a-love-interest-but-kind-of-still-a-love-interest's stonefaced talking.
So, from the past few paragraphs, you might think I didn't like this movie. I actually really did, I swear. I'm outlining all the flaws if they really mattered, because who cares about semi-non-existent romantic sub-plots and poor monster design when there are giant fucking robots punching giant aliens in the ocean. Jesus. But really, PACIFICxRIM was a fantastic looking movie filled with cheesy dialogue and over the top action. It was a B-movie, and it knew it. There were no holds barred and no half assing on that part. I came to see giant robots fuck up aliens in a fist fight, and that's exactly what I got.
Overall Score: 3.5/5
That's all for now, folks! What movies have you guys seen recently?
-DG
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