Pacific Rim: A Fangirl Review
Every year, Hollywood promises a summer
full of blockbuster movies, but how often do they really deliver on that? We get a lot of sequels and big budget
movies that promise to entertain, but often leave us and our wallets feeling
empty.
This summer has been hit or miss for me,
so far. I loved Iron Man 3 and Star Trek
into Darkness but wasn’t thrilled with Man of Steel, and completely let down by
World War Z. I enjoyed Monsters
University and Despicable Me 2 but didn’t leave the theater with the same love I
had for the first ones. Needless to say I
had very high hopes that Pacific Rim would even out my summer movie experience.
My interest in this movie started last
year at the New York Comic Con. Guillermo
del Toro held a panel with Legendary Studios and discussed Pacific Rim, and
buzz over the movie quickly hit the show floor.
Sadly, I couldn’t get in to that panel, but I was infected by the buzz
nonetheless and have kept up on its progress ever since. Let’s face it, del Toro directing a looming apocalypse, alien monsters that come
from the deep rather than space and giant robots built to kick some monster
ass…I’m all in!
Pacific Rim is everything a summer
blockbuster should be. First and
foremost, you should expect to be entertained, and you will be! Right from the
start, we get an introduction into a world that has been invaded by Kaiju,
gigantic monsters that do not come in peace.
They defeat the first one with Military firepower, but when they realize
there are more, extreme measures must be taken and the Jaeger (Hunter in
German) Program is born!
Please bear with me while my inner
12-year-old geeks out for a moment…the monsters are freakin’ cool and scary as
hell! The Kaiju (monster in Japanese)
are measured on a Fujita-esque scale from 1-5: 1 being the first to emerge and
5 being the end of life as we know it. They
resemble dinosaurs and I love them all the more for it. I would love to give more detail on them, but
I really don’t want to give too much away. It’s much better to discover that
for yourself. I bit all my nails off
during the fighting scenes with the Robots! Each time they would tackle, throw
or spit toxic goo at the robots, I thought “Shit! How are they going to defeat
this Kaiju? It’s so powerful!” As the movie progresses, they just get bigger
and badder!
On to the robots! You can’t help but be fired up over these
things! They are massive! They can fight
on land and sea and they have some pretty cool gadgets for kicking some serious
Kaiju ass. Each Jaeger needs two pilots
to control it, the stronger the bond between them, the better they fight. The fight sequences between the Jaegers and
the Kaiju are jaw-dropping. We see them
fight in all kinds of places, but the best one takes place in the Hong Kong bay. The colorful background of Hong Kong and the
intense fight between multiple Jaegers makes for one intense battle scene that
garnered cheers from the audience at the end of it. My personal favorite Jaeger was the Gypsy
Danger, but they were all awesome. I’m sure
you’ll have your own favorite.
Pacific Rim is 132 minutes of pure
fun! The plot is simple—Monsters bad, Robots
good—but it’s a joy to watch. Again, with
this movie, the human storyline may take a backseat at times, but, honestly,
who cares? There’s enough of it to keep
the story going and stay interested until the next epic battle. Personally, I
liked the story; I thought it was well told and paced perfectly. I cared just enough about everyone to feel
something for them when they were in danger and to shed a tear or two at the
end when…oh I won’t spoil it.
Go see this movie! If you’re tired of the crap that Hollywood
gives you 90% of the time, then go see this movie and let the box office show
that we still want original movies that for once can truly be called a summer
blockbuster!
