Review – Pacific Rim

In action films, bigness equals goodness. No matter whatever else is subtracted in the equation, awesomeness is the result. Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim features the very biggest Japan has to offer, kaiju (“strange beasts”, i.e. Godzilla) and mecha (giant human-controlled robots), pitting them against each other in a war that spans two different universes.

As far as action films go, this one is very big indeed.

This film is in many ways a very traditional kaiju affair, despite being a Hollywood adaption filled with Western-flavoured clichés and characters. The bad elements are rather bad, unfortunately. The film has woeful dialogue littered with tedious exposition – which regardless fails to explain away the often ludicrous implausibilities of the plot – and the pathetically inane and hackneyed character development just seems to get in the way of the action. It is a mystery as to why a film like this needs characters you can personally invest in. I would have been happier just watching more of the robots, some of which were vanquished early and barely got any screen time. Instead, I got a lot of tedious humanizing.

The mecha designs are very big and very awesome, in contrast with the comparatively generic and somewhat indistinct kaiju designs – a fact not helped in that many of the fights are at night and in the ocean. Part of the blame here, I think, ought be worn by the filmmakers who chose to frame the action (particularly in combat) too close. But they at least make good use of the 3D format, which is proving to be an excellent option in the action genre. Pacific Rim might have a generic storyline and underwhelming characters, but it is only an action film, and it has some very cool robots.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag&w=400]