Film Review: Pacific Rim

For the past few years the biggest blockbusters were superhero movies.  Most of these films found a good balance between character focus and action.  Guillermo Del Torro's Pacific Rim for me was going to be this year's biggest blockbuster.  An entertaining and exciting action Sci-Fi flick with an ensemble of interesting characters.  Did it live up to my expectations? To be truthful the majority of it did.

In the film is set in the not too distant future humanity is under attack by alien creatures known as the Kaiju, who rise from a portal on the pacific floor and attack public cities.  The humans fight back by using big war machines known as the Jaegars, that are controlled by two humans per machine.  That's as much as I want to give away for this film but it gives you the overall feeling the film has.

When a film is directed by Guillermo Del Toro you know that you aren't going to be disappointed by the visual effects.  I tried my best not to watch any trailers for this film and as a result my jaw dropped in amazement when I saw the Kaijus enter the film for the first time.  The visuals for the entire film are outstanding and I found my inner child emerge once the Kaijus and Jaegars fought for the first time.  Having grown up with Power Rangers the fight scenes do remind me of a final showdown between the Power Rangers and their foe but with better effects and the action cranked up to 11.  

The action for me did seem to be the film's main focus and the characters were overshadowed by it.  The three main characters for me were the least interesting characters.  I know they were the three who had the most backstory but I just found myself not very engaged with them.  My two favourite characters were Dr Newton Geizsler and Dr Hermann Gottlieb played superbly by Charlie Day and Burn Gorman.  Both are two mad scientists who play an active role in the film and also bring the best laughs when on screen.  These two actors as well as Ron Perlman were the ones I found to be having the most fun and giving the most energy in the film.

If there is one thing I have to criticise then that's the action itself.  Midway through the film a long and epic fight is taken place and it was that big I thought it was going to be the film's climax.  However, I was wrong and during the film's final battle I found myself being less interested in the film.  I felt as though I was watching the same fight I saw previously but less entertaining this time.  Most of the action takes place at night as well so after a while the heavy use of flashy lights gets irritating but maybe that's just me.

Pacific Rim is an entertaining and exciting Sci-Fi B movie made by Del Toro.  It doesn't try to be smart but at the same time doesn't try to be dumb.  It's definitely going to be this year's best popcorn movie but as this year's best blockbuster I'd say it's far from it.  The action and visual effects are at its best but near the end you find the set pieces getting repetitive and as a result less exciting. The characters are all 3 dimensional but not all of them are really that interesting.  If you're just wanting to be entertained then I would recommend this film.

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