Pacific Rim

Del Toro brings us something that has been done before. After all, big cities have already been devastated by The Avengers, Transformers, or Superman to the point that falling skyscrapers are becoming a bit of a stereotype. The director tries to add personality to it by providing some pretty clear action scenes, and by not going too far over the edge in terms of visual sweeps. On the other hand, into two hours he didn't cram in a single major character, a real character who could pull carry better than a jaeger pulling a tin can down the street. Idris Elba has charisma but drowns in pathetic speeches, and the rest of the ensemble is severely uninteresting - Ron Perlman is more of an iconic trademark than a functional character. It goes by quickly, but the most important and impressive scene is still the escape of little Mako from the kaiju through the empty street. (2013-07-18)

It is much less spectacular than Avengers or Man of Steel, which is quite ironic, as it should be a much "bigger film" in terms of the screenplay. It is also less functional. The battles are decent, the visual effects are good, and even the 3D works. However, the characters are poorly developed, and the viewer doesn't really identify with anyone completely. It reaches its peak with the iconic Ron Perlman, who is clearly only there for decoration, and overall I felt like it was more of a summer blockbuster than a technically groundbreaking or otherwise innovative thing. I didn't feel the desire to say anything, I didn't feel great ambitions, nor a grand score. Entertain and move on. It is thrilling and also suspenseful, they literally played with the Jaegers and got everything they could out of them. (2013-07-18)

After watching this film, at first I said to myself that it was completely average. But then I went down another star as I thought of a lot of scenes where the logic of it was just too incomprehensible. Pacific Rim is a textbook example of a blockbuster. I don’t blame it for that, I even liked the camera and digital effects that Guillermo del Toro and his crew worked with. But let no one tell me, and now I’m going to spoil a bit, that the best warriors in those robots are brothers who, by coincidence, are on a routine mission in a sea grasped by a monster who immediately takes down one of them. I was also fascinated by how ten years later the other brother is offered to control a robot again and is considered an incredible fighter, which of course the other colleagues do not believe him at all. Plus, not a single actor fully convinced me to like him here, which is quite a fundamental issue, because Guillermo relies on the power of dialogues that do not work here at all in this regard. The only one worth it is Charlie Day as the crazy doctor. The rest is neither funny nor interesting, and the viewer simply cannot connect to them, which is probably the most fundamental stumbling block. It’s not entirely bad, but it failed because of the average actors and a very bland screenplay, which is simplifying so many things that it’s just incredibly obvious. (2014-06-14)

A case of cinematic megalomania that is not self-serving and over the top, but is the very essence of the target concept, the blood in the heart of the film. A simple storytelling template, perfect visual effects and super-cool action scenes (Hong Kong Harbor rules), redesigned visuals of mecha-robots and sea monsters. Astonishment over the epic power of the opponents (the Japanese will piss their pants). Plus Guillermo del Toro-like enthusiasm for slime, skin parasites and Ron Perlman. The characters and their interaction, however, are not too impressive and the dinosaur idea is very contrived. That’s a pity. The 3D is better than usual (but still only converted from 2D in post-production). I wonder whether it’s a coincidence that the mad scientist looks exactly like J.J. Abrams. (2013-07-11)

One of my most anticipated films of the year turned out to be pretty weak! I’d been looking forward to Pacific Rim basically ever since the first reports. A war between giant human-controlled robots and giant sea monsters could be conceived in many ways, but I was hoping for a gritty and dark sci-fi bash with relentless apocalyptic atmosphere and massive and originally conceived battles (the first reports spoke of at least five giant battles, with each being shot in a different way). In short, I was hoping for something like the antithesis to the childish Transformers. If only. Pacific Rim is nothing but a generic popcorn movie for kids with jokes, shallow characters, clichés, and pathos. Even the action scenes don’t have much juice – and there aren’t enough of them (in the first half, the characters are just talking in hangars and it’s insufferable). Del Toro really only aimed for “the bar” – even the design of the monsters and the robots is not amazing. Squandered opportunity. (2013-07-18)