Monday, July 22, 2013
Pacific Rim is, quite simply, a winner of a summer movie.
The selling point of this film is Big Robots vs. Big Monsters. The gigantic monsters (Kaiju) are rising from a dimensional rift. The robots (Jaegers) are run by two-pilot teams who work in choreographed tangents.
The fights are astonishing, bouncing between classical filmmaking and the blurrier, more chaotic modern style that is a feast for the eyes. Del Torro has created a world rich with ideas, many plundered with all reverence from classic anime films like Akira and Japanese monster movies like Godzilla and (my all-time favorite) Mothra.
Our hero, Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), is an ace pilot who gave up robot-piloting for coastal wall-building when his partner and older brother Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff) died fighting a monster. The pilots don't just share physical responsibilities, they are also able to access to one another's memories, and the connection is still active when his brother dies.
Raleigh thinks the bond he had with his brother can never be replicated, that his loss was irreplaceable. He learns otherwise when he's paired with a young woman named Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), who gives a performance that is of stronger range that this kind of films typically deserves. From here we get the typical story of their burgeoning partnership it's up and downs and the bond that is created in "the drift."
Idris Elba gives a great over-the-top performance as commanding officer Stacker Penetcost and no one can top the scene stealing Ron Perlman as a maverick entrepreneur called Hannibal Chau. But let's be honest, we are here for the fights and they are stellar.
After watching these battles between Kaiju and Jaegers, you can see how ripped off we have all been by the Transformer movies and many other big-budget "bloats." The battles are fluid without seeming overdone; they also show the real world consequences of such destruction (unlike the almost nuclear destruction of Metropolis in Man of Steel).
Pacific Rim is a better movie than what you expect; a classic sci-fi actioner in the offering for the 10-year-old in all of us. The 10-year-old in me is holding out for a sequel, but is satisfied by what I saw on the screen. Four stars.
P.S. The 3D effects were done in post-production, so I suggest seeing the non-3D version as the filmmakers intended.
James Halcomb is a nurse tech at the University of Kentucky Hospital. The Lexington resident has spent much of his nearly 40 years of life with his nose in a book, his eyes staring at a screen, ears covered by earphones or his mouth stuffed with food. As a result he became an avid film nerd, TV geek, food snob and book buff. He somehow lucked into meeting the love of his life, Tammy, and married her. They also have a 3-year-old-son, Quinn.
Comments
comments
No comments:
Post a Comment