Holy crap. Well Pacific Rim is here! Must I tell you to get you excited for this movie? Of course not. Everyone’s excited for this film. It has big monsters fighting robots. Director Guillermo del Toro redefines the definition of fun in the theaters.Talk about a ride.
The movie in the very beginning defines the words Jaeger and Kaiju which means hunter and beast. It talks about a portal that opened from under the ocean and the Kaijus entering Earth through that. They caused destruction and millions of deaths. To combat these beasts, they had to create monsters of their own, Jaegers. From then on, it focuses on the main character, a Jaeger pilot by the name of Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam). They tell you early on about how piloting the Jaeger works. There must be two running the Jaeger as it is too much to handle for one, and the two pilots must have immaculate chemistry. Their minds are interconnected running the Jaeger as one, knowing everything about each other, and knowing how the other feels at the same time. So when Raleigh Becket loses his fellow co-pilot/brother, he felt the death as it happened and stayed away from the Jaegers and focused on constructing the wall. But he makes a return when Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) recruits him back. Pentecost has lost funding of the Jaeger program, and with only a few Jaegers left, he seeks out Becket, knowing him as one of the best.
They make their way to the base in Hong Kong. They meet Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), Becket’s future co-pilot. She has a neat backstory, being basically a tortured soul. Pentecost was reluctant to put her out there because of his fatherly protectiveness over her and because of her rage and taste for revenge against the Kaijus. Becket and her have a rough start when Becket accidentally got out of the drift remembering the accident of when his brother’s life was taken, which caused Mori to have a flashback to her childhood. Mori was put into a trance and almost destroyed the base. The two were grounded. But when two Kaijus came out of the portal and all Jaegers were non-functional, it was up to Mori and Becket and their Jaeger, Gipsy Danger, to combat the two by themselves. Talk about special effects. Wow. Just spectacular. It’s not like Transformers where you don’t know what the heck was going on. You could actually follow it and the whole time you’re blown away. In some of the scenes, your jaw drops. You start thinking, “Holy crap! Is that even happening?” And the 3D just adds to it. That is how 3D is done. You get immersed into the scene more with them. Anyways, Becket and Mori successfully kills both Kaijus but as Pentecost states, “Though this may be harsh, there is no time for celebration.” The portal is still open and in a few days or in a few hours, more Kaijus will come out and the Jaegers have to be 100% operational by then.
In the meanwhile, a scientist named Dr. Newton Geizler has been studying Kaijus for years trying to figure out everything about them. He had a sudden idea of drifting with the Kaiju brain, similar to how the two pilots connect together in a Jaeger. Though no one believed it to be possible, he managed to do it and see the memories of the Kaiju. He realizes their motives. However, he needs a full functional brain to see everything. He seeks out a black market dealer, Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) who basically makes a dealing selling Kaiju organs. Perlman’s character of Chau is a fun one who brings some comic relief to the movie. After an attack, Dr. Geizler managed to obtain a brain from a baby Kaiju.
Pentecost came up with a plan to close the portal. If the portal doesn’t close soon, there would be more and more Kaijus coming. With two Jaegers, they make their way underwater to basically blow up the portal with basically a nuclear bomb. Just as they were nearing the portal, Kaijus appear, blocking their way to the entrance. But Dr. Geizler and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb rush in and alerted them that their plan wasn’t going to work. They would have to pretend to be a Kaiju to get into the portal. If they continued with their plan, the bomb would only bounce back and be ineffective. They continued fighting underwater where one Jaeger ultimately makes a sacrifice for the other to continue. Grabbing a dead Kaiju, one of the Jaegers fall into the portal and make their way to the other side. After a few complications, the bomb detonates while the two pilots escape in their pods. This ending was very Avengers-esque. That was the only thing that bothered me but I still freaking loved it.
This movie is a must see. This is the definition of a summer blockbuster and probably the most fun I had in theaters all year. The performances were fine and gotta love Elba’s “Cancelling the Apocalypse” speech. It was Independence Day-esque. Some say that the story was weak and cliche and that the characters were one dimensional. It was and they were. But usually with this type of movie, I say screw it. I’m here to have fun and see some crazy action. And that’s what I got. Del Toro did a fantastic job with this movie and with the visuals. Is it too early to say an Oscar nom for the VFX team? And I’m only gonna say this a few times in my life but the 3D was outstanding. I’m not saying you have to. I never tell anyone to see any movie in 3D cuz I still think it’s a waste of money and hate wearing those glasses. But, if you can chip in a few bucks more, the 3D was worth it. It only immerses you into the film a whole lot more. In addition, the score for this movie was fantastic. I mean it was Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man, Game of Thrones, etc) so it was to be expected.
I give this film:
4.3/5
Freak of Flicks 