A high budget love letter from director Guillermo del Toro to Japanese science fiction cinema, this story of giant monsters and titanic robots failed to light up the domestic box office. Yet it was far from a failure becoming a massive hit worldwide. Aimed squarely at twelve year olds (including inner ones), a simple heroic story told mainly visually also targets the human heart despite being a brutal slugfest. Beautiful to behold, packed with action, and supported by a good cast it is a whole lot of fun.
A last minute decision was made to add this review to my Halloween lineup since it was time for a giant monster movie in the rotation. Featuring kaijus (giant monsters) fighting with mechas (giant robots) rendered with the most modern of effects, it certainly fills the bill. Also, I love this flick and wanted an excuse to do a full review of its Blu-ray release. Thanks to a large amount of extras, it turned into a Herculean endeavor.
But hey, better to go large, right? Speaking of which…
Pacific Rim launches straight into a prologue packed to the gills with action and information narrated by a rueful voice looking back at the events. Set in the near future, a huge amount of exposition both verbal and visual comes at the audience at a furious rate. In summation, giant toxic monsters have emerged from a dimensional rift called the Breach in the ocean floor of the Pacific, towering robots were built in an international effort to stop them, and humanity thought they were winning.
This data overload is presented in the form of news clips, flashes of monsters called the Kaiju (Japanese for giant beasts) trashing cities, and scenes of Jaegers (German for hunter) being built. Not only does it set things up, but the montage gives glimpses of Kaiju and Kaeger designs that didn’t make the final cut. More interesting is that del Toro did not direct this portion of the prologue. Not one to use the “found footage” or pseudo documentary style, he instead assigned it to a trusted friend and was delighted with the results.
It has been awhile since I’ve seen a big budget movie dare to start in the middle of a story and while it might not be what people are now used to, I’ve always felt that it adds to the suspension of disbelief. After all, most of life is about wandering into a situation as it messily unfolds rather than being there from the beginning.
With the setup explained the movie really begins.
