Review #671: 'Pacific Rim' (2013)

There has always been a clear distinction between director Guillermo del Toro's art-house Mexican productions and his more audience-pandering Hollywood movies. Not just in quality, but also in tone. His native efforts have produced the haunting The Devil's Backbone (2001) and his masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth (2006), which both leaned towards the director's love of fantasy and folklore as well as meditations on war and childhood. Pacific Rim, his latest big-budget Hollywood production (following cancellations and delays on his work on The Hobbit and At the Mountains of Madness) is probably his most 'Hollywoody' to date. It's big, loud, stupid, but also quite fun, with del Toro harking back to his childhood days watching Japanese kaiju movies.

Earth is under attack from giant monsters dubbed as 'kaiju', who rise out of the Pacific Ocean from a portal to devastate anything in their path. Humanity fared well in their war against this new threat, building giant robots named 'Jaegers' to battle the kaiju's, until the attacks became more frequent, and the monsters larger and deadlier. The Jaeger's need to be powered by two pilots - one to represent the left side of the brain and the other the right. But the pilots are also required to be 'drift compatible', as once in the 'drift', they share each other memories, instincts and pain. We first meet ace pilot Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) battling a kaiju with his brother. His brother is killed, and Raleigh is washed up on shore and helps in the construction of a giant wall to keep the creatures out.

Four years later, and the Jaeger programme is being shut down. Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), the commander of the Jaeger's, takes the programme underground. He persuades Raleigh to re-join the programme, and introduces him to Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), a beautiful woman who clearly shares a link to Stacker. Also working on the programme are comic relief characters Dr. Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), two bickering scientists who are studying the kaiju and their emergence in different ways. Raleigh demands to be teamed up with Mako, who he is clearly drift compatible with, and the two must learn to work together before the final assault.

It's a lot of plot to take in, but this has a hefty 131 minutes to explore it in. Del Toro manages to create a lot of back-story that is crammed in to the twenty minute prologue, but it's all a lot of twaddle to give the movie a reason to stage some gargantuan action scenes. With a movie like this, you come to see the action. We want to see giant robots smash the shit out of giant monsters, and del Toro certainly delivers on that front. There's no elegance in the fighting; they just pummel each other with giant fists and, every now and then, some acid and giant saws. Cities are devastated, thousands are (presumably) killed and tourist sites are made out of the results. The CGI is frankly astonishing, and watched in high definition especially, the film looks beautiful.

Yet as much genuine heart del Toro puts into the action scenes, he fails wholeheartedly in the moments in between. There is no character development and no original plot devices, just another messiah story with a heavy section in the middle dedicated to the preparation for the moment everyone is waiting for. This is as soulless as they come, and although its easy to say that the lack of plot and character is expected of a film like this, the movie doesn't have any star power to add any charisma to the proceedings. Independence Day (1996), as much as I detest the film, at least had Will Smith to keep us amused between the sickening lashings of cheddar, and Armageddon (1998) had Bruce Willis. Pacific Rim has Idris Elba, who certainly tries his best with his Henry V speeches and dashing suits, but he's second fiddle to Charlie Hunnam, who just doesn't cut the mustard.

There's also the distraction of Day and Gorman, who are undoubtedly the most annoying and unfunny comic-relief double-act since those twin racial stereotypes in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009). The reason for their existence points to giving del Toro's favourite actor Ron Perlman a reason to be in the film, and although Perlman's presence is always welcome, his sub-plot proves to be a distraction to the central storyline. Perhaps del Toro simply needed to make a movie after a few years of delayed and failed projects, so a little self-indulgence can certainly be forgiven, especially if the results are as entertaining as this. But it just begs the question of why del Toro doesn't put the same heart into his mainstream movies as he does his arthouse films.


Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Max Martini, Robert Kazinsky, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Clifton Collins Jr., Ron Perlman
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie