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Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
Pacific Rim is a movie about giant human-piloted robots battling giant monsters for the fate of the planet.

Concept: Harkening back to the classic days of Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, Mazinger Z, and other classic giant robot/monster live action and anime films(as well as more recent ones such as Evangelion and Gundam), Pacific Rim brings them to the modern era with style and a dedication showing a true love of the concept. Guillermo Del Toro says that this is the movie he has been dreaming of making since he was young. I can believe it! The care and precision to make the Kaiju properly menacing(but could still potentially be a guy in a suit!) and the Jaeger mechs have immense weight and power is definitely felt in the movie.

The Kaiju, Jaegers, and "Believability": The Jaegers are not motion-captured, they are all hand-animated, which allows them to move with an incredibly titanic, thunderous might that I've not seen matched in a long time, maybe ever. Just watching one stride through a city as it battles a Kaiju, the very earth splintering and erupting from every footstep and your seat rumbling with the impact(if you're in IMAX), really gives proper respect to their size and power. Same goes for the Kaiju. They stomp, charge, roar and smash through skyscrapers without a single care despite being 300 feet tall. They rip apart the powerful Jaegers with claws, teeth, bony protrusions and gigantic arms. They really are as big a threat as they are portrayed as. In making both the Jaegers and the Kaiju feel completely believable in context of the movie's world, it excels. In providing entertaining and destructive battles, it dishes them out at a fairly rapid pace.

The (puny) Humans: The human characters in the movie are mostly pretty good. Stacker Pentecost(Idris Elba) is a great character, a compassionate but commanding leader and makes good use of any screen time he inhabits to show his acting chops. Raleigh Becket(Charlie Hunnam), and Mako Mori(Rinko Kikuchi) make a good pair and decent enough leads. Charlie Day as the wacky scientist Dr. Newton Geiszler and Burn Gorman as Gottlieb add some pretty great humor to the movie. THE MOMENT Hannibal Chau(Ron Perlman) showed up onscreen, the theater knew they were in for a treat and reacted accordingly, and that's all I'll say about his performance. Herc and Chuck Hansen(Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky respectively) take up a lot of screen time, say a lot of stuff, and ultimately wind up utterly forgettable as characters other than being a gruff but good-natured father and a fuckhead douchey son. Most of the other actors had all of two lines or are mostly irrelevant.

The Story: The story is serviceable. Kaiju are emerging from the ocean through a mysterious dimensional rift at the bottom of the ocean. Shortly after the first showed up and destroyed multiple cities, killing millions of people before being taken down by massed firepower, two more arrive and kill millions more. The Jaeger Program was hastily developed to create machines that could easily grapple with and destroy the Kaiju on their own terms. Dozens of Jaegers were designed and built, and soon Kaiju became more of a joke and less of a threat. That's when the movie starts. The human side of the story is pretty much cliche city, and often feels little more than the joints to link together the Big Guys Fightin'. Many characters are given fairly pointless development, others are perhaps not given enough. For the most part the human side gives a good breather between the fights and has some honest-to-goodness great scenes. The world of Pacific Rim is pretty detailed and if you want to know more, there's plenty of background info available.


I have a few minor gripes with the movie. The plot is not the best, however it could be very, very much worse, it holds together the movie well enough and still manages to largely stay interesting or at least inoffensive most of the time. The subplot about (minor spoiler)harvesting dead Kaiju body parts is pretty interesting(and gross) and gives Ron Perlman ample time to ham it up. The number of Jaegers in the film was misled, they had previously said there would be 3 more Jaegers than the ones already shown(Crimson Typhoon, Cherno Alpha, Gipsy Danger, Striker Eureka), and while technically true, they (very minor spoiler)only show up in flashbacks. As well, some of the Jaegers hyped up in the media wind up taking part in only a small fraction of the movie, and one is literally in one scene and that's it.


A movie I would liken this to would be the first Jurassic Park. I have not felt the sense of wonder and excitement I felt when watching Pacific Rim since I first saw Jurassic Park in theaters as a kid. Both are flawed movies, but ultimately classics, and I would say Pacific Rim both for its technical advancement and wondrous nature could wind up being this generation's Jurassic Park.

It was an extremely enjoyable experience not really hampered by the serviceable but cliche plot, and any whining I have are largely minor. It was really hard to believe that the movie is over two hours long, it felt like it flew by for me. I was very much pulled back to being a little kid again and had a big wide grin on my face for a lot of the movie's runtime.

5/5

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Blast of Confetti
Apr 21, 2008

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I really like this movie. I saw it on opening day after a few months of getting pumped for it. I was worried that I was starting to get too hyped for it only to be disappointed, sort of like what happened with Man of Steel, but the movie is so drat endearing that it's hard to want to be the guy that points out a plot hole or annoyance with the dialogue.

The first thing to understand with this movie is that the character plot exists here to get us from A to B. It's largely expository, so conversations generally boil down to, "This happened because of that." There's some comedic moments between characters, notably between Charlie from Always Sunny (hell if I know his name :v:) and Ron Perlman as Hannibal Chao. Characters generally act exactly how you would think they do and everyone does their part well enough. I could get offended that they cast Athletic White Guy #2031 as the protagonist, but this movie really isn't about him.

This movie is about gigantic robots beating the poo poo out of gigantic monsters. This is the first movie I've ever seen where I was waiting for the plot development segments to end so we could get back to the action because, man, I was grinning like an idiot the entire time. Everything moves with a sense of purpose and weight. I hate to compare this movie with Transformers, but it's really the only thing that you can compare it to with today's movies. While things sometimes devolved in to a blur, the explosions coming from the speakers made it obvious how colossally hard the jaeger just smashed a kaiju. The world these behemoths inhabit reacts to them, such as waves crashing outward with every single step taken. The environment is also used, rather than a place for fights to happen. The scene where Gipsy Danger uses a freighter boat as a katana was, as much as I hate to use this word, epic.

There's also a lot of little touches that add a spark of humanity. This movie takes place at the end of a fight for survival. Humanity has tried to create a wall to keep the kaiju out only to have to smashed to pieces. There's a real sense that this is the final fight. Yet, despite all the destruction, there's one scene that hits home that may be overlooked if you're not careful. When Gipsy Danger is hunting a kaiju through the streets of Hong Kong, it comes to a little bridge. Neither of the pilots recognize it or point it out. Gipsy Danger carefully steps over the bridge. It's not a slow thing, it's obviously a subconscious act. Even though they're piloting a 2,500 ton death machine, the pilots of the jaegers are aware that they're trying to save the world. Transformers would have just blown up the bridge because it would look cool.

This movie is a piece of art. No, it's not Citizen Kane, but this movie is a product of love. While obviously there's a lot of CGI, it's only used when necessary. Although Guillermo Del Toro could have shot all the actors in front of green screen, he created a four story tall cockpit and strapped the actors in so every punch, every lurch, every hit was turned in to real world movement. That this movie came out around the same time as Grown Ups 2 and people seriously consider Sandler's scam over this is almost an insult to the craft. If you like movies in even the vaguest sense of the word, go and see this on the biggest screen possible. Show Hollywood that you would rather have this than another "comedy" starring a bunch of 40 year old SNL flunkies.

5/5 You can easily pick this movie apart, but at the end of the day, it's about giant robots punching the bad guys and this movie most certainly delivers on that.

bad news bareback
Jan 16, 2009

The action scenes are so amazing and absolutely jaw droppingly fantastic that I completely forgot about how lovely the story is and how none if made sense I think. I literally forgot all of my gripes by the end of the movie.

5/5

The Ninth Layer
Jun 20, 2007

I had high hopes for this movie, to the point that halfway through I was almost worried about how much I was enjoying myself. I kept waiting for this movie to turn into a crappy summer blockbuster but it never happened. This is how a spectacle action movie should be done: with a plot that gets you through the movie and sets the stage for well-choreographed action scenes. The monster battles felt weighty and were a blast to follow, standing starkly in contrast to movies like Transformers where you can't tell what the hell is going on or Man of Steel where two guys beat on each other with no variation for an hour until the movie has to close. It's not the smartest movie in the world and it's not without flaws, but it's exactly as advertised. I really hope they make a sequel soon!

5/5

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
In my mind, the closest comparison for Pacific Rim is Avatar. A simple, straightforward story that is designed to deliver an amazing spectacle set in an amazing, fantastic world of action and adventure. The film moves at a solid pace, driving towards the next scene without issue, never letting anything drag on or over stay its welcome. Almost every event in the film is there because of something a character did earlier - the Kaiju drift, checking for a pulse, even the designs and behaviour of the monsters. The characters are delivered in broad strokes leaving them likeable and easy to understand. Where Transformers is cynical, always reminding the audience that the 'grown up' military will prevail over childish toy-machines, Pacific Rim is optimistic and unapologetic about itself - it's an adventure film about adrenaline fuelled 'rock stars' in giant robots fighting giant monsters from another dimension.

The soundtrack is incredible, the direction impeccable, the set design... everything about the film is just incredible and clearly indicates the sheer amount of love that went into the film.

The only real flaw I have with this film is that it isn't long enough. There's so much more that I would have liked to see - particularly of the robots Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon and their respective pilots.

5/5

The Oldest Man
Jul 28, 2003

Pacific Rim has a straight-forward idea of the kind of movie it wants to be: a big, effects-driven spectacle about people regaining their ability to trust to overcome tremendous odds. Unfortunately, it undercuts its own message at several points in service to the conventions of the action-adventure genre. The themes the movie is trying to present are left covered in mud by the plot points it has to use to present them.

What did this movie do well?

Visual effects. See this movie in IMAX, it's an incredible use of the format and you won't be left wanting in that department.
Pacing. A lot of big summer action movies sag under their own weight, but Pacific Rim's pacing is crisp and never leaves you wondering when they're going to get back to the giant dinosaur fights for too long. It's a good example of how to sequence an effects-driven movie of over two hours.
World-building. The setting of the movie totally overshadows the characters, and it's my sincere hope that del Toro gets to do a sequel solely so that we can see more of it.

What did this movie not do well?

Character interaction. The two mains are incredibly tepid and never really develop the chemistry that's shown even between the main character and his brother for a few brief moments at the start of the movie. The number of times they communicate with each other in the cockpit, throughout 40+ minutes of punching monsters, can be counted on one hand. Worse, the things they say are almost entirely one-liners said to the audience rather than something said to the character they are supposed to be developing a direct mind-to-mind bond with. And it's all a little thin when their bond is established far away from the monsters that are the focus of the movie, and never suffers a setback during a real fight. Did the script forget what is supposed to be challenging the heroes here?
Themes. Pacific Rim wants to be all about the triumph of human relationships over incredible adversity. Unfortunately, the two main characters only really show any sign of this at the very end of the movie, and the theme is badly undercut by the other Jaeger pilots getting almost no screen-time and subsequently dying en masse in really lovely ways. Most egregious is that the pilots supposedly need to have a deep, trusting bond and yet the B-team gets a hand-waved replacement at the last second with no ill effects. I understand why the movie was written this way (genre convention), but it's incredibly lazy and kneecaps the message the movie is trying to send.
Dialog. After watching del Toro's efforts on Hellboy I thought that this would be witty and human, but the writing is crap and the acting is worse. There are only a couple of genuinely good exchanges or speeches in the entire movie and I think all of them involve Idris Elba.

Still, this is the best robot-punches-dinosaur movie I've ever seen and it's worth your money.
3.5/5

The Oldest Man fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jul 17, 2013

b0nes
Sep 11, 2001
Just got back from seeing this. 2 words: HOLY poo poo!!!

One of the best movies I have seen in a long time. The special effects were mind blowing. You really get a sense of how loving huge the Jagers are. it's a Robotech cum Godzilla wet dream. My only issues with the film are some cheesy and utterly predictable parts, especially the very last scene.
5/5

Stay after the credits to see Hannibal Chou come out of the gut of the baby Kaiju and ask for his shoe, literally the entire movie theater walked out on that one.

covok48
Apr 3, 2009
The best way I can describe this movie is: Transformers meets Godzilla.

With that being said, I absolutely loved this movie the both times I've seen it. What's better is that I saw it with two entirely different people (my best friend and then my wife) who also liked it for different reasons. My friend enjoyed it since the movie to him was a real life anime complete with monsters & giant mechs. My wife loved the film's concept & alternate universe setting (as well as the adorable bulldog.)

The Good:

The soundtrack and sound effects for this film are top-notch. This combination during the dramatic introduction of Gypsy Danger was so awe inspiring that it gave me the chills. You cheer for every mech punch thrown at those goddamned alien-monsters and the sheer size & scale of the action can be felt in every battle (especially in Imax/3D.) Like others have said, it sets the action bar high to start with & it only gets better with time.

Personally, I also dig the entire concept of a struggling world trying to cope with such a large scale catastrophe. It's not ID4 where aliens show up one day and start wrecking poo poo nor is it a post-apocalyptic film where all the significant damage has been done before the story begins. But rather the tail end of a bitter see-saw war stretched over 12 years that has left an undeniable negative mark on society, which is typical when on the losing end of a war of attrition.

The Not-So-Good:

The main drawback is that just enough background story is given throughout the movie to advance the plot and nothing more. While I believe Del Toro didn't want the back story to bog down movie (which is already long by today's standards @ 2 hrs 17 min), a whole rich alternate universe is somewhat ignored & largely left to the imagination to the moviegoer. This isn't a bad thing as a novella, comic, and coffee table book are available on Amazon to fill in the gaps, but it seems a waste to dream up an entire alternate world & not explore it.

The character development has been cited as a weak point in the film (I agree) & there's no movie plot cliche you haven't seen before. However, the overall concept of humanity's near impending doom allow these faults to not bring down the film as the gravity of the situation makes these issues seem moot in a "if we lose, none of this poo poo matters" sort of way.

Regardless, this movie is best described as a whole greater than the sum of it's parts. And to put this in perspective, this is the first movie I have gone to the theater to see twice since 1996 & I gladly paid the more expensive IMAX/ 3D prices both times. And it is likely I will do the exact same thing if a sequel is made.

5/5 Easy.

covok48 fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Aug 3, 2013

Not Wolverine
Jul 1, 2007
I loved Real Steel, and I felt like this movie was basically super-sized real-steel robots boxing giant lizards instead of other robots.

The plot was acceptable and the side plot (harvesting Kaiju dung) kept the main plot interesting. My only complaints about this movie are that the chinese lady's role outcome was waaay too predictable, and the colonel's accent was just all wrong. The stunning visuals and giant robots made up for any downfall.

4.5/5

Nelson Mandela
Jun 4, 2007

SO SHINY
SO CHROME
Decided to see this very spur-of-the-moment. Posted about it on my Facebook an hour before in the vague hope of finding someone to see it with. Surprisingly, my girlfriend bit - I didn't think it would be her kind of movie at all.

The movie starts and I hear her groan - it ISN'T her type of movie and she's regretting coming.

Two hours later, the credits roll and she turns to me and says "Well, that was good fun!".

This is a true summer blockbuster, the likes of which I don't think we've had since Independence Day. And I mean that in the best way - ID4 was a loving blast and this was the same. Constantly in awe, bombarded by awesome scenes. It's funny. There characters are diverse and interesting, if not particularly new.

Guys will love the scenes of giant robots smashing giant lizards/bugs. Chicks will love the bulldog and the characters.

4.5/5, not had this much fun at the cinema for a long, long time.

Toadsniff
Apr 10, 2006

Fire Down Below: Crab Company 2
Really surprised by all the high praise, this movie has a solid 1 hour of boring nonsensical exposition. The acting from the lead is really bad and I couldn't care less about him as a character. If all you want is monster battles then you may wish to have the remote at the ready to fast forward after the initial fight sequence because you won't be seeing any action for looooong time.

To the good points though, when there is action it's pretty good (albeit a bit fast for how actual robots of such size would move, so it looks a bit cartoony here and there). Overall it was not very enjoyable, and I love giant robot poo poo. Remember Robot Jox? How you were all excited by the giant robots at first but realized there were only two fights in the entire movie? Well it'll be deja vu all over again.

2/5

A Major Fucker
Mar 10, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
ruined arin and jon's relationship.

5/5

lynch_69
Jan 21, 2001

Godzilla monsters attack Earth’s coastal cities from rifts inside the Pacific Ocean prompting the creation of giant robots to deal with this alien menace.

This is adolescent wish-fulfillment at its finest. The whole movie is a set up for a series of titanic battles between Godzilla monsters and giant-robots involving slow-motion punches and wrestling moves resulting in billions of dollars worth of property damage.

The cast is serviceable and largely forgettable. Anyone familiar with mecha anime will recognize these character archetypes: the goofy scientist, the hard-as-nails veteran, the bland hero, the cocky rear end in a top hat (who gets his comeuppance), the pretty-Asian-girl-who-kicks-rear end but has-a-troubled-past, the nefarious black-marketer, and so on.

Not much to recommend here apart from the giant robot fights. The talky relationship-building moments drag on too long; the rousing pre-battle speeches aren’t particularly rousing; the humour falls flat. Thankfully we don’t have to wait too long before another Godzilla-monster/giant-robot fight starts up.

The music got grating - the same heroic refrain plays over and over again. I grew up watching Mazinger-Z, Patlabor and Evangelion - unfortunately watching this I realized how routine and two-dimensional most of those mecha shows were.

3/5

lynch_69 fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Oct 9, 2013

Ahmed
Dec 24, 2012

Surgeon
Lipstick Apathy
When I saw Pacific Rim, it remind me of two old japanese anime I used to watch when I was child (Dinosaur War Izenborg and Mazinger), this is the main reason I liked the movie.
Story : 5/5 I like this new presentation of my childhood memories.
Graphics : 5/5 watching this movie in 3D is a unique and epic experience.
Acting : 3/5 acting was superficial and characters were shallow.
Sound Track : 2/5 it can be epic a lot than that.
The movie end : I did not liked the end its a happy one than I expected.
overall : 4/5

Blistex
Oct 30, 2003

Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler
My wife and I watched it tonight and spend 90% of the movie asking why it (the movie) kept doing stupid things.

If you can turn your brain off and enjoy the 2 fight scenes that last more than 30 seconds, you'll probably like this movie.
If you're the kind of person who gets annoyed/frustrated when a movie's entire shtick is based on a really dumb idea, then skip it.

Pros: CGI was Cool, That little Japanese girl made me tear up a little.
Cons: "General, our F-22's can't kill them with puny 20mm guns, better build giant robots and fight them like cavemen since we have no other weapons in our arsenal!"

2/5

The Rat
Aug 29, 2004

You will find no one to help you here. Beth DuClare has been dissected and placed in cryonic storage.

I went to see this film blind. Hadn't even seen a trailer. It ended up being the most enjoyable movie I've seen in years. Really inspired a sense of dumbstruck awe in many moments.

Of course, I am slightly biased since I grew up on giant robot stuff. Seeing this movie felt like the culmination of everything I ever watched when I was a kid.

5/5

DeeMurf
Oct 15, 2013

Grenouilles Sans Frontiers


Horrible.

Script seems to be written by enslaved monkies following an all too familiar recipe and acting of leads is just plain at best. Ron Pearlman deserves mention as on the better side.
Aaand, lots of show-off grade CGI. As if that helps.

2/5

Mofette
Jan 9, 2004

Hey you! It's the sound, in your head goes round and round


I hate Sci-fi, I hate stuff with no storylines, I should DESPISE this movie however there is something, something that I can't help finding endearing about the whole thing. The stupid guy from It's Always Sunny, the lack of decent storyline, This could almost be my new Starship Troopers.

Idris Elba is so much better than this!

4/5

Waltzing Along
Jun 14, 2008

There's only one
Human race
Many faces
Everybody belongs here
This seemed like a movie aimed at the lowest common denominator but it missed and hit lower. It wasn't intelligent or well acted or anything that gave it merit other than special effects.

1/5

Petah
Aug 24, 2006

Keeping the American Imperialists at bay since 1948
I don't know a lot about Guillermo del Toro, but if he's as half as goony as he looks it explains a lot of the stuff I hated about this movie. It's plays out like a 90s era anime where half the characters are emotionally retarded and the character rivalries bear less maturity than middle school bullies on their lunch break. The science is stupid, the concept is stupid, but it sure is entertaining to watch it fold out.

If I had watched this in an IMax theatre I probably would have given this movie a higher rating, and I think that's the reason this thread started out with nothing but high marks. If you're watching this on the small screen you'll probably wonder why it got so much hype, but if you have a nice home theater you'll be in for a mindlessly violent treat.

2.5/5

Petah fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jul 8, 2014

Oxphocker
Aug 17, 2005

PLEASE DO NOT BACKSEAT MODERATE
I dunno, went into this movie with good recommendations from friends but found it really lacking..

Pros: Very cool fight scenes and good atmosphere overall. Some funny parts and not a total waste of time. Ron Perlman was probably the highlight of the entire movie for his character.

Cons: Weak story with several major gaps in plot if the plasma guns were actually effective, why wasn't everything armed with them? The Wall, tanks, planes, etc could have effective weapons as opposed to only a few mechs. and a lot of one dimensional characters that could have been better but instead were only good for a few one liners. There could have been a lot more squeezed out of the main characters trauma as opposed to teaming him with an equally broken partner. Also the whole nuke thing was like out of a bad B movie.

2/5

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Elentor
Dec 14, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
A lot of people seem to really like this movie but I really... didn't. It felt very reminiscent from the age of forgettable sci-fi movies (late 90's, early 00s) with varying degrees of budget and special effects. Regardless of intention, this movie seemed closer to them more than anything, down to awkward nerd stereotypes (which work in, say, Jurassic Park better than they work here). The main difference is that this movie has a good director and we're in a period of considerably better effects. In that aspect, this movie to me seemed to pay homage to far worse western movies (or in some cases, better, but for completely different reasons) and not to the actual giant robot/monster movies of old, despite its premise and skin. The effects in general were good but I didn't care about any character, and the action scenes did not really keep me interested because I didn't feel like there was anything at stake. I watched them and thought "yeah this would be a great demo reel for someone on Youtube" and that was the only context in which I enjoyed them: Imagining how happy the artists who did them must be.

2/5

Elentor fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Nov 18, 2019

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