Big, loud and mildly fun "Pacific Rim"
"Pacific Rim" fits perfectly in the summer movie going season. The monstrously budgeted and mounted film is geared toward the guys and filled with special effects and action galore. The fact it's helmed by acclaimed fantasy director Guillermo Del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth") makes it a tad smarter than others in genre, with the visuals clearly the best thing about an all-too familiar, excessively loud film. The film is set in the near future as legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, start rising from the sea to engage war with humanity. To combat these monstrous giants, Earth constructs robotic monsters of their own, known as Jaegars and piloted by humans. A washed up pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi) team to form mankind's last hope against a mounting apocalypse. The modestly fun but clunky "Pacific Rim" certainly delivers the action, even if it will certainly induce a headache from all the CG visuals crammed into it. Granted, Del Toro, the creative genius behind such hits as "Blade II" and "Hellboy" is an interesting choice for something like this, and he certainly has his usual, weird fun with the creatures, but they overtake the story early on, leaving behind a muddled narrative and cardboard characters. The enormous creatures, the real stars of the show, are indeed dark and brooding, but even they have a ring of familiarity to them, making this feel like "Transformers" crossed with "Godzilla" with a little bit of "Matrix" thrown in for good measure. It doesn't help that the talented cast is largely wasted amidst the action. Hunnam ("Sons of Anarchy") is a bland action-hero while Oscar-nominated Japanese actress Kikuchi, who doesn't fit here, just a plain odd one. Idris Elba, comedian Charlie Day, and Del Toro's favorite actor, Ron Perlman, are all mixed in for different flavors, with Day and Perlman thrown in for obvious comedic measure, and they end up with some of the better lines of the script by Del Toro and Travis Beacham. Del Toro is the most interesting of filmmakers, which makes "Pacific Rim" an intriguing failure; it's watchable with some well-placed action set pieces, even if it's so excessively busy you don't care about any of the humans. The mildly entertaining but ultimately unsatisfying "Pacific Rim" is a testosterone-fueled epic that will likely play best with the fanboy set (i.e. mostly young guys), who'll get the most out of the video-game style action and battles. In spite of its appeal on that level, it's a disappointment. Go if you must, but take some Tylenol with you if you do.
Wes's Grade: C+
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