Saw this film earlier tonight for free in 3D. I'll leave my thoughts here and attempt to be as spoiler free as possible.
I've been anticipating this film for a long time. I am a big fan of several of Guillermo del Toro's films in the past, plus like many here on the web, I am just kind of a fan of GDT as a person, a person who exhibits good humor and shares an enthusiasm for many of the same genres of films, comics, cartoons and games which I enjoy filling my time with. All that said, I am abosolutely primed to level and engage with the kind of material that makes up Pacific Rim. However, my fandom and anticipation so therefore hype could have really sunk my reception of this movie when finally seeing it hit the screen.
All of that said, this movie is great, it does not at all disappoint. Pacific Rim feels like the fulfillment of a promise, as weird as it is to say. And not just of the promises made in the films premise of mechs vs monsters, or the promises of the filmmakers that film would ultimately be centered around character driven conflicts. It certainly follows through on those. In a weird way this movie fulfills the promise of what summer movies are supposed to be. Pacific Rim is the experience I hope to have each year when I look through the list of upcoming film releases at the end of April. The movie is great fun, it is something I want to share and discuss and revel in. It offers a rock solid story and distinct characters. It offers a whole world to think about. It makes use of a lot of a lot of tropes and imagery that haven't really been tapped into in live action films, especially here in the west but also contributes a lot of interesting ideas of its own.
What it comes down to is that this is one of the first films that I've seen all year, particularly this summer where I walked away completely satisfied. I don't have to qualify my enjoyment of this film. ("It liked except for..." "It was pretty good for what it was..." "Better than I expected" etc). Pacific Rim delivers.
The film introduces its world in a rather manner of fact manor. Really, its just up to you whether you're going to engage with it or not. An opening montage of mediaclips and voice over (way better than the cut we've heard from trailers btw) simply present a world in which the Kaiju just show up. After attempts to fight them with conventional weapons the first Jaeger is built as an attempted solution. It proves to be surprisingly effective and therefore the most apparently practical solution within the film's world and its what the nations of the world commit themselves to. And for many years it works quite well. The fact that Kaiju sometimes attack and that we sometimes have to fight them just become incorporated into our culture. The attacks are unfortunate but fairly managable, much how we deal with hurricanes now. Somtimes they are particularly bad, but it in the end it is still just the weather. It doesn't stop us from building cities in the Gulf. Again, its all rather manner of fact and it works well. The film however tells the story of what happens when this status quo falls apart, when the Kaiju get worse and the the threat is no longer manageable.
Several presumptuous blurbs have been thrown around trying to compare this film to Star Wars. That's not really the comparison I would make just because this movie won't make that kind of splash. I think they are responding to the rich world building that's at play here, and rich it, but still that's not really the comparison I would make. If a Star Wars really had to be made though, The Empire Strikes Back might be a good comparison for tone and characters. Even then though the comparison doesn't quite stick because the feel of the film is given that odd Del Toro twist.
Not to keep just comparing this film to others, but it must be said that Transformers is completely off base point of comparison for this film and this comment is not due to a Transformers comparison being a potential sleight. Its just the matter of fact that this truly is a character driven film. In the Transformers movies, the escapades of the Witwicky family always felt slightly tacked on, just getting the way and muddling what the audience actually wants to see the robot fights. In this, without the human characters, there are no battles. The kaiju don't just pose a threat to humanity as an abstract whole. The monster attacks ultimately feel like attacks directly on the characters of the film, whom we really get to know. Complications don't arise just from a bigger monster showing up or a mechanical failure but personal failures on the count of the characters, from their own attitudes and habits or their failure to over come the baggage that they bring along with them. Everything the filmmakers emphasize in interviews in regard to character driven conflict is absolutely true. The Kaiju are presented pretty much as a force of nature but the time the story is set, they are a simple fact of life. The story isn't so much about fighting them so much as how different people bounce off one another in trying to survive and figure out how to overcome the threat.
Really if I was going to use any film as a point of comparison it would actually be The Matrix. The Matrix similarly wears its influences on its sleeve without ever dipping into reference or relying on earlier associations to tell its story. It introduces a conflict in which humanity is pretty much on its last leg and in which a crew of people are desperately fighting the good fight. Pacific Rim also reminds me very much of the Matrix in its characters. In the Matrix we got to know Neo, Trinity and Morpheus really well but then we were also introduced to the rest of Nebuchadnezzar. These side characters were interesting in their own right but we never really got to know them particularly well, yet many of them remain memorable. The case is very much the same here in Pacific Rim except that the number of characters that we get to know is thankfully far wider. We get to know Riley and Mako and Major Pentecost intimately, but the film also has a surprising focus on the story of the some of the other Jaeger pilots as well, as well as the two scientist characters. Similar to the Matrix though the cast spins out into a number of interesting and memorable yet fleeting tertiary characters that really help the film to feel expansive.
The action in this is very good as one may assume, but really even more than just the wow factor of the monsters and Jaegers and the effects. The movie does a great job of really selling the connection between the machines and the human pilots as a single unit. Blows against the Jaegers really feel like wounds to the characters and every punch feels like a challenge and an honest threat to the characters lives. This isn't the meaningless pummeling witnessed a few weeks back in MOS.
It really has to be said though, this film has too much rain. Or rather the problem isn't so much the rain so much as some really conspicuous smoke. The choice to set most of the fights at night really works in the films favor for the most part. The Kaiju as you've seen are designed to be bioluminescent and the night time settings allow for use of many different light sources and often allow for a very distinct color pallet (The Hong Kong fights are absolutely beautiful and are lit like nothing else I've really ever seen). There are no real day time fights though. There are some bits of daytime Kaiju footage, but they are exactly that within the film, clips of footage or in one case the ground level memories of a little girl. Most of these are put to good use but in the absence of rain, there is often too much smoke. There are one or two the Kaiju that I felt I really didn't get a good enough of a look at. Luckly the film stops doing this and the Kaiju start being featured front and center. Overall I feel that the choices made make the film visually distinct from other movies (Bright daylight fights would only bolster the transformers comparisons) but your mileage may vary.
I I know I haven't really touched on the acting or a few other important bits but this is running a bit long and I'm happy to to discuss everything in more specific terms (and still spoiler free) so I'll just kind of cut this here.
What it all comes down to is that I think that this is the real deal. A truly satisfying summer film with a lot of heart and interesting ideas and visuals the likes of which we've really ever seen in live action, and really at times beyond what we've even seen in other media. I'd be afraid of over-hyping the film, but I think you'll be surprised at how well it holds up to even the highest of expectations. Pacific Rim delivers.
