PACIFIC RIM

When monstrous aliens invaded Earth through a portal deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, mankind was caught unawares and suffered great devastation. To combat these gigantic creatures dubbed ‘Kaijus,’ the humans constructed colossal robots called ‘Jaegers.’ But after twelve years of battling the Kaijus, the human defense is on the verge of collapse. Mankind’s fate now lies in the hands of a washed up Jaeger pilot (Raleigh Becket), his rookie co-pilot (Mako Mori) and the rest of the scanty human resistance. They must now take the fight to the aliens in order to prevent the impending apocalypse.

The concept of Pacific Rim is undoubtedly a wet dream for Sci-Fi Geeks around the world. This is what you get when you breed a Godzilla flick with a movie like Robot Jox (1989). The movie-science of the story is interesting; a Jaeger needs two individuals to pilot it, one controls the right hemisphere and the other controls the left. Both pilots have to establish a mind-meld type connection where their two minds become one. This is critical to operate a Jaeger as one cohesive unit. Having the aliens invade the planet via a breach in the Earth’s crust is simple and original because every alien invasion need not originate from space. Even the overall story is bearable given the fact that this is a pure Popcorn Movie for summer audiences who may not care for complexity. But where Pacific Rim shoots itself in the foot is in the dialogue. It’s been a while since I watched a movie with consistently clichéd dialogue. From start to finish, the sum of corny lines keeps increasing. Quotes worthy of committing to memory such as “let’s suit up and kick some ass,” “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” and last but not least “age before beauty, old man.” The two screenwriters are certainly not wordsmiths but one would think to avoid writing most of these overused lines.

One of the repercussions of bad dialogue is that it creates bad performances, even from usually good actors. Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Clifton Collins Jr. and Ron Perlman are all terrific actors but they’ve been turned into overacting typecasts. Rinko Kikuchi who plays Mako is painfully miscast as the only female character. She doesn’t have the range of emotions to fully flesh out the struggle of her character. But the prize for worst performance and most annoying character goes to Charlie Day as Dr. Newton Geiszler. His screechy and high pitched voice is like fingernails on a blackboard. Half the time his speech is incomprehensible because of his hyperactive voice.

When I think ‘Summer Blockbuster,’ I think progressive cinematography, thrilling action, spectacular CGI, crisp editing and a killer score. The look of the film is well crafted, the action scenes are entertaining and the editing hits the mark. Ramin Djawadi is probably one of the coolest composers working in film and television these days. His score just gets you in the mood to watch a Jaeger kick a Kaiju’s ass. The special effects are on par with the budget allocated but a little more creativity needed to be used when designing the alien monsters. Taking a crab, a bat and a lizard and just grotesquely enlarging them is not very impressive.

‘Giant robots versus giant monsters’ is a cinematic spectacle that had to be made and Guillermo Del Toro seemed to be the ideal guy to bring it to the big screen. But the Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Hell Boy (2004) director has fallen short. There has always been a signature ‘feel’ to a Del Toro movie; a sense of whimsy or magic. His past films feel like a tailor-made suit where as Pacific Rim feels like a ready-made suit off the Hollywood rack. The horrid dialogue and poor acting spoils what could have been a cult classic.

Rating: 6/10

S. V. Fernando