Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim
Starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day

Directed by Giollermo del Toro

In 2013, the Pacific coast comes under attack by Kaijus - huge otherworldly creatures who come out from an interdimensional portal in the Pacific Ocean.  At first the world doesn't know how to stop them, until they create monsters of their own - Jaegers, colossal robots manned by two people who are connected by their brains, linked to share the load of piloting such monstrous machines. 

The Jaegers successfully fend the world from the Kaijus, but as the years progress the Kaijus become more sophisticated and intellectual, and begin destroying the Jaegers by observing their actions.  By 2025, the Jaeger program is discontinued, and the governments of the world resort to building huge walls to keep the Kaiju at bay.

Former captain Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) wants to use the four remaining Jaegers to put an end to the Kaijus once and for all, by sending one into the portal to the other side with a nuclear bomb.  He enlists the help of former Jaeger captain Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), who lost his brother in a Kaiju attack five years earlier.

Becket heads to Hong Kong and deals with several possible recruits to join him in the Jaeger, and he eventually chooses Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) due to their very profound connection.  At first Pentecost is against it, but when two Kaiju attack Hong Kong, destroying two other Jaegers, he reluctantly agrees.  Together Becket and Mori destroy the two Kaiju, and they soon prepare for the final battle, and hopefully close the portal for good before the Kaiju decimate the earth.

Director Guillermo del Toro has brought to life some of the most profound creatures of our time - "Hellboy," "Pan's Labyrinth," "The Orphanage."  With "Pacific Rim," he dives into our history of the great Godzilla movies of the past and brings it to new life for a new generation.  Unfortunately, this type of film only appeals to a certain audience, so it didn't fare as well in America as it did in the international markets, and that's a sad thing.  As del Toro put it, his desire for this film was to appeal to all of us who, as children, spent time playing with action figures by clashing them together in titanic battles of our minds, and with "Pacific Rim," he does that.

The effects of the film are unfathomable, and hopefully he receives some Oscar nominations for his work (heck, if "Transformers" can get Oscar noms for Best Visual Effects, than "Pacific Rim" should easily).  It really released the inner child in me watching these huge creatures battling through cities, oceans, and even space.  It was pure joy from beginning to end.

The only slight downside is that del Toro abandoned story for action.  We hardly know anything about the leading character Becket except for him losing his brother.  There wasn't any conflict over him coming back five years after his brother died in the same Jaeger he's piloting again, no moment of realization or anything, it was just Pentecost coming to Becket saying he needs him back, and Becket basically just says "OK."  There was more story between Pentecost and Mori than with Becket, but that story is also profound, and includes some of the best visually appealing scenes of the film, when Mori is a child who is abandoned after a Kaiju attack on her city.

So there isn't a lot of story, but the action and the spectacle well makes up for it, as "Pacific Rim" is one of the best films of the summer you've haven't seen yet.  Not to mention the best line of any movie this year - "Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse!"

My Rating: A