Official Synopsis
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
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The joy of Guillermo del Toro films is how their storyline is packed into the visuals rather than through verbal explanation. This isn’t to say that characters don’t give you verbal clues about their backgrounds, their drive or what their intentions are going to be in regards to the impending plot points, but they certainly don’t do what typical action/sci-fi/fantasy films usually do, which is over explain to the audience everything.
This is why I like Guillermo del Toro and his films. This is why I really enjoyed Pacific Rim. Of course, this is probably the reason why some critics didn’t get the film.
On the surface, Pacific Rim is a robot-jockey film, where people are put into gigantic robots and ordered to beat up monsters. This stuff is straight from a Godzilla/Ultraman concept, where two overly sized characters simply try to destroy each other (and everything around them ‘by accident’). And trust me, folks, there is not a damn thing wrong with that concept. That is basically the main draw for Pacific Rim, and something of a motif when I heard friends coming from the theater talking about it. I mean, this is the type of stuff you did as a kid in your room with your toys, playing monsters versus whoever and battling it out in the most insane landscapes you could create. That is why people go to see this movie, and it’s not a bad reason at all.
Having said that, because Pacific Rim is a Guillermo del Toro film, there’s something more to it than just beastly beings destroying each other through destructible landscapes. The story that del Toro built around these massive beings works really darn well and acts as something of substance, rather than just a filler to get to the action. He gives reason through all his characters, through their experiences prior to them getting to the final stage of humanity’s last hope. He doesn’t have to build them up in anyway, but lets their stories combine in almost organic fashion on their own. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) is driven by the death of his brother. Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) is driven by her near death experience as a child by a Kaiju, and her ultimate rescue by Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba). Stacker is driven by his desire to see the mission through and fulfill his duty as a military man. All of these stories, while separate in nature, come together perfectly, and with the same cause in mind, to create a beautiful tale of struggle and sacrifice. Like I mentioned before, Guillermo del Toro doesn’t feel the need to explain any of this through some shoddy backstory speech given by his characters — rather he tells it visually through colors, expressions and other smaller video backstories scattered throughout the film, when it calls for it. He doesn’t push any of it on the crowd, rather lets the stories come together on their own.
That’s a lot of trust in your ideas, and one that pays off for him.
Having gushed all this, not all is perfect in Pacific Rim. My biggest complaint is the use of Robert Kazinsky’s asshole character, Chuck Hansen. We never really get a feel for who or what drives Hansen in the film. He’s the prototypical hothead pilot that is dominating in his field. His actions against the Kaiju are commendable, though a bit cocky. We never see his motivation come to full bloom, and del Toro tries to play him off as some headstrong bad guy that goes against what Raleigh stands for, but it never really reaches its full potential. Simply put, we don’t know what drives this guy or what makes him tick, therefore his actions can’t be understood very well. For me, he seems to be a very lost character in the scheme of things. He plays an important role towards the end, but the way it all unfolds, I’m not sure there’s much there to give him any dimension, which is sad considering how he ends his role in the movie. He’s just oddly out of place in Pacific Rim.
At the end of the day, Guillermo del Toro has done a great job with creating the world of Pacific Rim in the shortest amount of words. On top of this, he has painted a bleak picture for humanity, unleashed an unGodly enemy on the folks of earth and given us a lot of nice battles between robots and monsters, which makes for a great, fun flick of massive destruction (getting us prepped for the new Godzilla!…or Hellboy 3). Pacific Rim is by all means a great film and one that shouldn’t be overlooked.
If you missed this in the theater for some reason then you need to make a date next Tuesday in your living room to make up for that. Pacific Rim is worth your time and money.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the film, good lord it’s gorgeous! Typically, films that have a heavy amount of FX involved, like Pacific Rim does, usually don’t completely shine in the HD spotlight as perfectly as other films with less FX. Sometimes it’s the shoddy animation from the FX house, sometimes it’s just not enough details to keep it embedded with the real world shots. Whatever the case, Pacific Rim on Blu-ray does a superb job of showing how an HD film should look when heavy amounts of FX are embedded inside. The film is a colorful spectrum that features mainly blue, red, and yellow, which looks absolutely stunning on Blu-ray. This movie sets a new bar for Warner Home Video Blu-rays on how they should look and feel visually. There is zero graininess, no artifacts and no compression/color banding. Simply put, it’s a perfect Blu-ray. You’ll see it immediately with the opening shots of the movie where the Kaiju are attacking for the first time.
The audio comes to you in a very delightful DTS-HD 7.1, which your ears will appreciate and love, as well as the film aspect ratio coming to you in 1.85:1.
Finally, as for special features, here’s what you should expect:
· Audio Commentary by Guillermo del Toro
· The Directors Notebook
· Drift Space
· The Digital Artistry of Pacific Rim
· The Shatterdome
· Focus Points
· Deleted Scenes
· Blooper Reel
Outside of the great commentary by del Toro, the real draw here is The Director’s Notebook, which is an interactive experience. It’s basically an animated notebook that has hotspots in it that activate details (such as posters, concept art, etc.) and activate tiny featurettes that explain how the production of the feature was done. The Director’s Notebook is a pretty cool way to get bits of information of the film out to the viewer.
The Digital Artistry of Pacific Rim is a nice behind the scenes look at how the FX was done, what decisions were made (and why they were made) and just all sorts of fun FX information about Pacific Rim. It’s a nice, strong featurette that shows you how del Toro’s brain works with the imagery of his film.
As for the rest of the features, I was very impressed with the Drift Space feature, which opens up the drift space memories you see in the movie. It provides a bit more explanation of the actual scenes. It’s impressive and I’m still glad they didn’t do this in the actual film, as it would be way too much explaining.
The Shatterdome, focus points, deleted scenes and blooper reel are pretty good as well, but not as entertaining as the previous mentioned features.
Overall, a darn good set of features that compliment the movie.
Own “Pacific Rim” on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and HD Digital Download 10/15
