Should you watch this in 3D? Yes, but it wasn’t shot in 3D though.
Should you watch this at weekend movie prices? Yes.
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? No.
Secret ending? Sort of.
Running time: 132 minutes (~2 hours)
Pacific Rim is a science fiction movie about giant super robots fighting alien invaders. In a post apocalyptic world, humans pilot giant robots to fend off an alien invasion.
I loved it. It has all the trappings of a mecha-kaiju movie, replete with lots of destruction and special effects. The sophistication and attention to detail of the monsters and robots is amazing, and I enjoyed it so much that I did not check my phone until the end (to see if there was a secret ending, which there was).
So what’s good about it? Plenty!
Detailed robots and monsters
There is an amazing level of detail lavished on all the robot and monster designs. And it’s not thoughtless, pointless detail – the designs actually evoke certain feelings and add character to the monsters and robots. Not like, say, Life of Pi, where the effects were good but really more like pretty window dressing. Here, there is a point to the designs. The eye candy is enough to make your eyes obese.
Multiracial everything
You could call this lip service, but the movie makes an effort to demonstrate that this is an international response force. Every major country and ethnicity is included (although as usual, the token minorities are taken out first). Even the terminology for the robots (Jaeger) and monsters (Kaiju) show that this is indeed a global threat. There’s none of the usual smug American superiority (at least not overtly) in the film, which is refreshing since the “American Way” is getting a bit old and rather unbelievable.
Billions of dollars of collateral damage
This is incredibly shallow. But when you watch a fight between beings of godlike power, you expect our mortal structures to be demolished like so much cardboard. Exploding glass and shattering metal and broken concrete amidst tremors and fires and shockwaves. Pacific Rim doesn’t disappoint. And it drives home the importance of the Jaegers – without them, the only way to stop the Kaiju is probably with very blunt nuclear force.
Excellent fight sequences
Maybe I was half-expecting a Power Rangers-esque fight, which amounts to two men in rubber suits hitting each other and setting off explosive charges. But the fights create genuine tension and danger. At no point are you sure that the heroes will survive unscathed. The first Kaiju-Jaeger battle already demonstrates that. And with the tremendous losses the Jagers face in each fight, I was always worried about the heroes.
Surprisingly good setups and payoffs
Yes, there’s some drama in here! I’ll talk about it in greater detail in another post, but suffice to say that the plot devices and narrative elements don’t feel forced in any way. You can see certain parts coming, but it’s not fake or unjustified in any way. Everything has a reason for being.
Pacific Rim isn’t perfect though. There are some elements that could be improved, but I didn’t come in expecting to see Shakespeare. Entertainment-wise, I did find a few shortcomings in the film.
Actors aren’t that emotive
I guess there wasn’t a large enough budget to accommodate more seasoned, expressive actors. It’s not to say the cast delivered a bad performance, just that it wasn’t an excellent one. The right expressions are struck at the appropriate times, but the range and depth of the acting wasn’t there. Fortunately, the script didn’t call for very serious acting, and you certainly didn’t watch Pacific Rim for the performance, right?
Too many night scenes
In and of itself it’s not a bad thing, but I did want to see the fights in the day so as to gorge myself on the eye candy. Possibly due to budget restraints, since animating in the dark requires less detail and hence, money, but a minor quibble in otherwise excellent special effects.
I don’t know if I imagined it, but I saw loads of references to other kaiju and mecha in the show! Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of references. I could be wrong, but then I love drawing connections.
Jaeger designs – They look like Evas from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Gipsy Danger’s leitmotif – The leitmotif, or musical theme, that plays every time Gipsy Danger arrives or wins sounds like Real Steel‘s theme.
Mako – In Final Fantasy 7, Mako is the energy source that the bad guys are trying to tap. This contributes to the planet’s retaliation, which is to send the Weapons, giant kaiju, to destroy all civilisation.
Rangers – The Jaeger pilots are Rangers. Megazords, giant robots, were piloted by the Power Rangers to fight against giant alien monsters (of-the-day).
Crimson Typhoon – The China-made Jaeger’s name is Crimson Typhoon, and “crimson” isn’t usually a word associated with Chinese (scarlet or red, maybe). One of Iron Man‘s foes is the Crimson Dynamo.
This is an original article on marcusgohmarcusgoh.com
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I’m a Singapore television scriptwriter who’s written for Lion Mums, Crimewatch, Police & Thief, and Incredible Tales. I’m also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. You can find me on social media as Optimarcus and on my site.
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