Pacific Rim

Did I miss something?

The two scientists and the Hong Kong dude were so over-the-top lame it made me cringe. The story was one I've heard so many times in games and movies, etc. that even though I didn't go looking for story... it sort of just feels like a rehash of a story I've heard/seen/played way too many times. You think they could at least come up with something compelling for a sub plot.

Anyway, it was OK, just surprised to see as much positivity as I did on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and users. Maybe I just didn't get it or came in the wrong mood, but I was underwhelmed.

EDIT: Also, glad it wasn't just me getting old. This movie was so freaking loud that the high frequencies were hurting my ears at points. I wished I could have turned it down. And people are ALWAYS telling me to turn things down.
 
Craptastic is a pretty good description after seeing it tonight. It was bad, sorta self-aware but sorta not...a really expensive Asylum movie. The only moment of acting that even connected with me was the crying little girl. Not sure why so many enjoyed it as much as they did.
 
KyleProhaska said:
Not sure why so many enjoyed it as much as they did.
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What part of giant f'ing monsters fighting giant f'ing robots do you not understand?

:laugh:ok, seriously I agree more with you than most of the people who loved it. I think it's the type of movie that you really have to work to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy it. It's "summer fare", the kind of meaningless spectacle that's supposed to appeal to a broad audience wanting something big. However, even this kind of movie needs to get some things right to be considered good. They missed a few beats, but if you can past them, then it's still a good FX show.
 
Andrius Simutis said:
What part of giant f'ing monsters fighting giant f'ing robots do you not understand?

:laugh:ok, seriously I agree more with you than most of the people who loved it. I think it's the type of movie that you really have to work to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy it. It's "summer fare", the kind of meaningless spectacle that's supposed to appeal to a broad audience wanting something big. However, even this kind of movie needs to get some things right to be considered good. They missed a few beats, but if you can past them, then it's still a good FX show.
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A well written script cost just as much as a crappy script in Hollywood budgets. There's no rule that says if you have FX you must have a bad script, or if you have a good script you cannot have FX.

For me the background scene of the little girl in Pacific Rim just seems like an add on instead actual character development.

But somehow the going back in the past to look at the origins of the character seems to really work in this scene from Kill Bill.

 
Personally, I really enjoyed Pacific Rim.

I kind of figured it was going to be over the top and cartoonish when I first saw the teaser trailer. I liked that it went for big bold colorfulness instead of trying to be yet another grim and gritty genre flick like so many films of its kind are these days. In a way, it felt a bit old fashioned. It felt optimistic even though it featured apocalyptic imagery.

I do agree though that some of the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more for a film that has a running time of 2 hours and 12 minutes, it seems a bit light in terms of some of the character relationships and all that stuff. Again, I like that it felt over the top and like a big live action cartoon, but still would have liked to have seen more interaction between the various Jaeger pilot crews. The Russian and Chinese pilots didn't seem to get hardly any screen time, and the Australian father-son crew was interesting, yet not given as much time to interact with Mako and Raleigh. I liked the idea of the Top Gun like rivalry between giant mech pilots, but it just ended in fisticuffs for the most part. I kind of wanted to see that rivalry turn into something more positive, but the hot shot Australian pilot seems to finally come around to being less of a typical jock arsewipe only at the end when he is gonna die.

Idris Elba was probably the most interesting character IMO. In a strange way, it feels like he was the center of the film, even though the focus is on Raleigh and Mako working together to go into battle piloting Gipsy Danger. I also got a kick out of Ron Pearlman and his fancy shoes. You could tell he was having a blast working on this with del Toro.

I guess the way I saw it in terms of the characters, Pacific Rim is like the cheesy but tons of fun old school Godzilla flicks. Those usually feature an ensemble of characters, and not one primary protagonist like most mainstream Hollywood action movies have their focus centered on. The reason being that Godzilla is the star. You just need people to play off of his actions since he doesn't talk to Rodan or King Ghidorah. Concept is king, not who is starring in the film. In this case, giant monsters fighting against giant mechs. Same type of focus with Transformers. They had Shia Lebouf and a bunch of other characters because a bigger star would have pulled attention away from the cool concept of 'robots in disguise' as automobiles and other everyday objects. Same with The Avengers to an extent, although that had the additional leverage of the other Marvel movies having built up to an ensemble entry to the franchise.

That is why Pacific Rim had the guy from Sons of Anarchy, one of the dudes from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and a relatively unknown Japanese actress in three of the primary roles. The only really well known guy in there was Ron Perlman and Idris Elba to a lesser extent. It's just a different kind of summer spectacle movie than we are used to. It ain't just another sequel to Die Hard or The Bourne Identity or Iron Man with big movie stars in the lead. In fact, it reminded me of the buddy cop flicks from the 80's such as Lethal Weapon. Two characters instead of one. They compliment each other and are a greater force together than just going it alone. Mako was very tied to regulation and protocol. Raleigh was all about pushing boundaries and seeing what he could get away with. The idea of these two merging in the drift was what made them a great team. An odd but effective pairing. The same thing was evident in the way Charlie Day's character of Newt and the stodgy but excitable British scientist interacted. Actually both scientists were excitable, one was a bit reckless and the other was very by the book and not willing to take risks, only trusting in his equations. Only when the two decided to drift did they solve the problem. Maybe that is the message of the film? We won't solve the big problems that plague society without a bit of compromise and getting on the same page to some extent with the other concerned party. Simplistic in terms of social commentary? I guess, but then again Pacific Rim was aimed at younger audiences, not just teens and hip adults who are looking for The Dark Knight or District 9.

Perhaps it would have been smarter for Legendary Pictures to lead off with their Godzilla reboot, and then after people had a taste of some kaiju destruction, released Pacific Rim the year after? This way it would have likely been an easier sell since. Now it seems as if Pacific Rim's dismal performance and response from moviegoers might actually hurt Godzilla's chances of success next summer. It kind of feels backwards to the Marvel method, which would have likely been to make some reboots of the classic kaiju flicks (Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Rodan, etc) and then have Pacific Rim be their version of The Avengers. That way the Jaegers would be going up against the classic monsters instead of all new ones. It would have been an event instead of another big summer movie.

Anyways, I had a blast with Pacific Rim and wish that it had the chance of a sequel as there is some cool stuff to build on. I'd love to see some more of the other universe inhabited by those aliens who were cloning kaiju and sending them to Earth to wreak destruction and despair upon humanity.
 
jcs said:
That's interesting. Perhaps this isn't a movie for "14 year old boys" after all... maybe the references and deeper meaning resonate with an older audience with knowledge of all the pieces del Toro put into the film.
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My kids could spot the plagiarism, or "references" as you call them. Pans Labyrinth, this was not...
 
Meh.......

I finally got to see this on Netflix having missed it in the theaters. Not as good as I thought it would be, although it had its moments.
Some things I didn't like:

-No buildup of the monsters' arrival. We just jumped right into the destruction in a montage ripped off from The Road Warrior. I was like, "Oh we're going right into this...I was just sitting down."
-The musical score was not doing it for me. Really seemed formulaic, generic "powerful" music EDIT: I think the whole orchestral, inspirational thing is a tired genre. It has to be done really well to resonate. I was really digging what Daft Punk did for Tron Legacy. Synths! I know its good if I find myself looking for the musical score the next day.
-Discussed briefly was the whole concept of the Jaegers. Popular since I can remember is the giant robot concept. (Shogun Warriors, etc) but it just seemed kind of silly as a working method of defense. Lasers or nukes from a remote site would seem to be a whole lot simpler. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the notion of a giant robot successfully walking down a city street or on the ocean floor. I don't think anyone is going to rip apart the logistics of Pacific Rim like they did to Gravity.
-Too much emphasis on the Gipsy Danger and as mentioned....we don't know sh*t about the other teams nor do we care.
-The monsters didn't have any wow factor. No differentiation between any of them. They looked just like everything we've seen in films such as Cloverfield. We need another HR Giger to cook up something badass!
-Did anyone think a manmade wall would stop those beasts from breaching land? What a waste of time, and at least 3 good men.
-I thought Charlie Day's acting was subpar compared to his true thespian calling, "Always Sunny".
-Idris Elba had not one, but two corny motivational speeches. (by my count) But I did enjoy his character and Mako's.
-I'm at peace with the fact that I'll be suffering through "The Blade Runner effect" long past 2019. Yes, it's always raining, large groups of people go out at night (Many of which who are Asian!), and let's get as many video billboards up on skyscrapers as possible.

Aside from all my bashing, the visuals were great. Especially the city battles. Fists punching through buildings. All the explosions, glass and debris were awesome and well done.
Character & plot development weren't all that great, but I was compelled to stick this out to the end.
 
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