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 Someone
has written me a love letter. Like many mash notes, it’s a little
awkward and sometimes plain clumsy. It’s not a sonnet by Shakespeare or
a poem by Byron, but it has clearly been in the author’s heart for some
time and its aim is true. So it is with the blushes and thrills of
requited infatuation that I gladly accept Guillermo del Toro’s valentine
in the form of the kaiju-tastic Pacific Rim.
That
whole climate change thing? It’s really real, but the prospects of
hotter summers and colder winters aren’t even the tip of the melting
iceberg compared to the true consequences involved with the damage
humankind has caused our planet. Creatures dwelling near the earth’s
core have decided now is a perfect time to move on up to the West Side,
but first they have to be rid of the current tenants. A giant behemoth
the size of a skyscraper appears in the Pacific Ocean, but is taken down
by military force in about a week. Could this have been some freak
happenstance? A solitary instance of a prehistoric animal woken up
after millennia of dormancy? Of course not. Soon more of the first
guy’s friends are popping up all over the place and getting tougher to
kill. The world’s governments join together to staunch the threat and
the Jaegers are born: Giant exo-suits made for battle of a size on par
with the subterranean invaders (Now called Kaiju, the Japanese word
for monster) and are guided by a pair or trio of pilots. To get the
huge machines to work, a mind-meld of sorts must occur between those
inside, linking their every thought and memory, good or ill. Young
Raleigh Becket is one of the top pilots along with his older brother
until they are caught off guard by a Kaiju. Wounded, mourning and
partnerless, Raleigh gives up on the whole soldiering thing for half a
decade until it’s discovered that the underworld dwellers have been
revving up their defenses, sending stronger monsters to continue the
damage the scrubs teams began. The Jaeger project starts failing and is
about to shut down for good (In place of what, I dunno), but not
before Stacker Pentecost, the head of the offence makes one more Hail
Mary pass at stemming the tentacled tide. Gathering all the available
Jaeger meisters (Hee!), Stacker won’t stand for any self-pitying
guff when he approaches Raleigh to suit up again, this time with his
prodigy/adoptive daughter, Mako Mori, herself a bundle of regrets and
Kaiju-inflicted damage. While the Jaeger crew preps for the showdown
with the big creepies, behind the scenes, scientists attempt to find the
reason why no attack of the monsters’ underground hangout has ever
worked, including using the Jaeger mind-meld tech on the creatures.
It’s all hands on deck for one last attempt to take back the planet from
the Kaiju.
Oh, so
much happiness watching Pacific Rim. Not necessarily because it is the
best film ever made, but because it’s such a loving embrace of all the
Japanese science fiction I’ve adored all my life. There are the giant
monsters which hold up the flag for us Godzilla fanatics. There are the
Jaeger suits giving love to the endless amounts of mecha series that are
still abundant today in both live action and anime, like Gundam,
Evangelion, and even stateside with Robotech, Tranformers and Voltron.
There is the teamwork needed to make the operation successful that can
put all involved in danger, as in Battle of the Planets/Gatchaman’s
Fiery Phoenix phase, or recently in the brilliant but overlooked US
production, Sym-Bionic Titan (Which has a lot of similarities with
Pacific Rim’s suit operation). There is the magnificently
thrilling score by Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi that would’ve
made Akira Ifukube proud. There is the cool and deadly
battle-scarred warrior, the clean-cut young hero, the rebel, the
colourful quasi-villain and the feisty female (With an affinity for
blue hair dye) who can take down a Kaiju just as well as any of the
men. It’s every Japanese anime trope ever made and all together under
Guillermo Del Toro’s loving eye, it works beautifully. The mecha suits
look stunning and each one is made to a different specialty. They move
as they should, heavy and lumbering, and when they fall, it’s a huge
thump that is nearly guaranteed to damage if not kill the inner
inhabitants. The Kaiju are a mix of designs; resembling prehistoric
creatures and sea dwellers and often bear evolutionary adaptations and
defenses that surprise the Jaeger forces. Defensive walls crumble (Seems
to be a thing this year, see World War Z), buildings tumble (A la
Man of Steel) and the audience gets a depressing sense of what the
world would be like hiding out from these humongous extreme gentrifiers.
The script - particularly the dialog - won’t exactly tax the brain, in
fact it’s almost laughably lunkish and predictable at times, which
reminded me of watching the terribly dubbed Godzilla and Gamera movies,
with their cringe-worthy simplistic translations. All the bla bla bla
is just means to an end until we get to the action. Del Toro’s set
pieces are thrilling and he uses every bit of the frame for the tussles
between the gigantic creatures. My only issue here was that everything
took place at night. There wasn’t one good fight between the Jaeger and
the Kaiju that took place in the daylight that made it able see the
battles clearly. It was another thing that reminded me of earlier
monster movies, but in this case I felt a little cheated. We do see one
partially destroyed Jaeger in the daytime, about to fall to its end and
the sight and scope of the falling giant is truly awesome. Would that
there were more of those moments. There was also a stinted feeling
about the fact that we’re told and not shown what’s so great about the
other Jaeger teams, who are regarded as living legends. In the only
Jaeger piloted by three brothers, I would have loved to see the Red
Typhoon in more action than we’re given. The ending seems a bit rushed
and unclear for all the time taken to get to that point, but one gets
the general gist. Still, for its small stumbles, another aspect of
Pacific Rim that felt significant to me was in the various attempts to
replicate and pompously “improve” on the Japanese formula (1998
US-produced “Godzilla,” I’m side-eyeing you.) this film, made by a
Mexican director, in a Hollywood studio with an international cast, gave
me faith that with care and respect to its original sources, this kind
of film can successfully be made outside of Japan.
As the
leader of the Jaeger project and a former pilot himself, Stacker
Pentecost, played by Idris Elba is someone I’d definitely follow
anywhere he wanted to go (Especially in a Jaeger suit).
Commanding and fierce in the face of the monsters’ growing strength and
his political benefactors’ abandonment, Stacker hasn’t got time for
personality issues; his word is law. He knows full well that if the
Jaegers don’t give their all for this one last mission, there will be no
tomorrow. Charlie Hunnam works some strange, non-specific American
accent as Raleigh. There isn’t terribly much for him to do as with many
of the young heroes in anime, his character is touched by tragedy, yet
somehow remains pretty optimistic and vacuous. Oscar nominee Rinko
Kikuchi plays Mako Mori, the brightest star of the Jaeger project who is
kept from actually piloting any of the big machines by Stacker, who
loves the girl like a daughter since the day he rescued her from the
Kaiju that wrecked Tokyo (!) and killed her family. In Stacker’s eyes
Mako - for all her intellect and combat skills - will never been ready
and it’s Raleigh’s belief in her that gives the young woman the
confidence to suit up. There is also broad Tezuka-esque comedy provided
by the pair of scientists who try to discover how to destroy the
monster’s base. As one of the scientists, Charlie Day chases a theory
all through Hong Kong, running into a fabulously blinged-out Ron Perlman
as a black marketer dealing in the lucrative world of Kaiju parts. The
combination of Day and Perlman seriously needs a spinoff.
Is
Pacific Rim perfect? Nope. Its doltish dialog and those
cheaty, in the dark battle sequences keep it from cinematic nirvana.
However, Pacific Rim is an incredibly enjoyable blast of summer
entertainment that is worth every penny to see on the largest screen
possible. Guillermo Del Toro’s love letter to otaku everywhere finally
gave me a reason to remember the 2013 movie year.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
July
12th, 2013
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