indiescream.

Pacific Rim.

Hello friends, it’s been a while but what better way to return than with the latest offering from one of film’s sharpest minds, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim.

Pacific Rim is a film that had I been twelve years old upon its release, it would easily have become one of my favorite films. It’s not all that deep and it’s not dark like most of del Toro’s other works but it’s cool. It’s really damn cool.

The story is simple (minor spoilers): giant alien monsters called Kaijus begin appearing from a portal deep in the Pacific Ocean and wreaking havoc on humanity so the military creates giant robots called Jaegers in order to stop them and it proves highly effective until the Kaijus start becoming stronger and the government opts to discontinue the Jaegers defensive in favor of a giant, Kaiju-proof wall. Naturally, the wall idea was a bust so the Jaegers must once again come in a fight the ultra powerful Kaiju.

The film is cool, pretty to look at, and just plain fun. Idris Elba is great as Stacker Pentecost, the Marshal who keeps the Jaeger project alive once it was shut down, and Charlie Hunnam carries the film well in the lead role as Raleigh Becket. Charlie Day and Ron Pearlman are also great comic relief although the comedy wasn’t really relieving the audience of anything. My only real complaints are that Rinko Kikuchi’s performance as Mako Mori was lacking and just seemed stiff and out of place and that the film wrapped up far too nicely. I knew how it would end but I was hoping for something a tad different just to spice things up.

All in all, I had a big, dumb smile on my face during all of the battles and, weak ending aside, walked out of the theatre very satisfied and that’s saying something especially with ticket prices today. Del Toro set out to make a fun, unpretentious, action packed flick and he succeeded. Go see this in theatres and bring some friends. Films like this deserve the box office numbers so go support it.

★★★★

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Upon reevaluation, my initial score of three and a half stars has been bumped up to four due the excitement I noticed in my voice when discussing the film with my friends. It’s just so fucking fun.