Guillermo Del Toro's work has a particularly nice texture, thanks to his special blend of horror and beauty. There's a creepy magic, a certain atmosphere of melancholy. It elevates the stock elements like vampires, or ghosts. But he also makes films in English occasionally. I shouldn't be too harsh, as the enthusiasm for the craft is clear. But while they are generally solid something gets lost in between a masterpiece like Pan's Labyrinth and a popcorn flick like Hellboy. The trade paperbacks of Mike Mignola's anti-hero are worth reading. The art and the writing seems simple but has a lot of depth, and the characters are done well with a subtle sense of humour. However, on film it becomes a teen melodrama, and the weight of doomsday is swapped out for Hollywood clichés. So you understand I went into Pacific Rim with some anxiety.
In a near future version of planet Earth, monsters have emerged from an undersea portal. This dimensional rift is apparently set to release a new creature on a regular basis. Perhaps the intelligence behind it has seen too much of our television? To combat the threat of 'The Breach' the human military creates a series of giant fighting machines called 'Jaegers.' The monsters themselves, named 'Kaijus' only show up intermittently (and alone) from the same location, so it's unclear why so many robots are needed. The whole thing feels like a kids show from the age of Ultraman, but with far too much of a budget. Any kind of iron-clad logic in this story is missing entirely, and instead there's a bunch of bad accents, and a lot of technobabble about machines that need two pilots.
That being said, the end product is still an enjoyable ride for the most part. If not much more than that. Ironically the whole experience is rather light weight. Generally speaking the namesake Kaiju genre isn't something that can be taken very seriously, outside of the original Godzilla's anti-war themes. There are exceptions to the rule, but this story certainly doesn't try and change that. Which is kind of a shame. The works of Honda and Harryhausen might be openly credited, but it doesn't try and offer much in the way of depth. It's all strangely underwritten. This isn't helped by the leads being so flat, and the supporting cast being a mix of military leader archetypes. Some of them are little more than cartoon characters.
Surely when something like this is being made in such a self aware fashion, they should have tried to make the human elements stronger? At times I wished that the main characters were swapped out. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunham) is a zero charisma lead. His personal loss is offered as a basic set up, but isn't explored enough to have any impact. He should have been replaced by Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) who have more screen presence. They also share father and daughter-esque story that needed to be centre instead, in place of the typical underdog material. It's a strange mixture at times, I'd have liked some bigger personalities to stand out from all the giant battle sequences. But even Ron Pearlman is sidelined here for some reason.
The enormous action scenes are at least well handled with little in the way of flash cutting and shaky cam. You can see the impact of all the punches and it lets the camera focus on things. The visual effects are not as impressive as you might expect, although there are some fun moments. I mentioned Hellboy before; the original and its lone sequel had far more eye popping monster moments. They also including some practical creatures that were much more visceral and exciting. It doesn't help that the monster fights are all a little samey after a while. It's almost always dark. There's a lot of high contrast lighting. There's a lot of of sea water. A flashback showing a small child running from a gigantic crustacean hinted at something different in tone, but this is unfortunately cut short.
The few daytime battles are seen only in news footage and ever used as a proper centre piece. It doesn't help that the action peaks too early during the mid movie battle, when the underdogs get their first victory. The inventiveness of the fighting increases at a rapid pace here. Makeshift weapons are used and new creature tactics are introduced - but the finale isn't as fun. It feels much slower and is far less creative. It's starts to seem odd that so many slow firing weapons are being used, instead of the super effective bladed ones. Why not use more of those? Why not have military forces support the Jaeger pilots? It's a simple premise but there are some strange choices along the way.
It would have helped to make this a darker story, instead of a thin action spectacle. Two people are required to control each half of a huge robot brain, which is an interesting gimmick. But the effects of damage to the pilot and the impact of being in someone else's head is never examined closely enough. World building in a version of North America full of monster war propaganda and post apocalyptic scenery is also lacking. It's all set decades after the first creatures arrived - but only small glimpses are shown. Perhaps this all comes off as overly critical, which isn't my intent. After all, it's refreshing to see something like this done with some artistry and passion. It's also refreshing that this has heart missing from similar CGI filled franchises. But the results are flimsy but fun.
3/5
