Pacific Rim

I'm not sure which was the first piece of promo material I saw for Pacific Rim – I have a feeling it was a huge poster at the Piccadilly cinema which showed the head of the Jaeger¹ 'Gypsy Danger' – but it certainly got me interested enough to look further into it. When I found out what it was about – human-operated giant robot-like mecha fighting giant monsters – I was keen to know more; when I read it was to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, director of Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy, I decided to put it on my 'to-see' list.

As the opening date got closer, more and more promo stuff showed up, and I got more excited – which is something I don't often get with films. Sure, I look forward to particular movies – anything by the Coen Brothers or Wes Anderson or Joss Whedon, for example - but I can't say 'excited' is exactly how I'd describe how I feel about those. But something about this movie awoke the kid in me, the kid who loved cartoons like Robotech/Macross and Transformers – the same kid, of course, who enjoyed the first of the live-action film versions of that latter show and foolishly saw the second, which we all know was an exercise in breathtaking inanity² of the shittiest kind – so it became an absolute certainty I was going to see it.

It opened, and I was a bit surprised³ when it didn't rocket to the top of the box office. But I wasn't going to let that stop me, and when I got the chance I headed to the cinema to check it out.

Sadly, it wasn't that great. Some spoilers ahead.

The (rough) premise, if you aren't aware, is that in 2013 a giant monster (Kaiju, the term from Japanese films for creatures like Godzilla) emerged from the ocean and attacked a city and, despite being killed,it was followed by others which turned out to be coming from a 'portal' to another universe; humans built giant robots (the aforementioned Jaegers) to fight them, and they've been doing this for twenty years or so now. But the Kaiju keep coming, and so the governments of the world decided to try building giant walls to keep them out and shutting down the Jaeger program.

I think in some ways this is where they went wrong; pretty much all throughout the film had the feel of a disappointing sequel to something awesome⁴. Maybe if they'd set it earlier in the timeline, when the Kaiju first appeared and the first Jaegers were built – it just felt like a missed opportunity.

Which is pretty much how I view the film overall; a huge missed opportunity. A good core concept, a budget and a (generally) great director should make for something spectacular – it certainly has with the Marvel films, The Avengers in particular – as should the fact that a lot of films with only the budget have done poorly in recent times. And it wouldn't have taken too many changes to make Pacific Rim great, even without setting it, as I suggested, earlier in the timeline.

Casting Charlie Hunnam – or, at least, casting him and not directing him differently – was one problem; while I've liked him in other things (mostly the first couple of seasons of Sons of Anarchy), he just wasn't right for this. But the poor script he had to work with wouldn't have helped. The other cast – Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam's Sons of Anarchy co-star Ron Perlman, Charlie Day and Burn Gorman⁵ (the last two as scientists, both a bit mad/eccentric) – all have good moments, but it's not enough to make up for it.

Also relevant is the level of special effects – while they were pretty much flawless, that's actually standard these days; if it had come out even a year ago it would have been worth seeing just for what they did on screen, but now it's just one amongst many of what's around.

The best example I can think of, filmwise, for comparison is Independence Day – since it has a big overlap in terms of plot; too much, in fact – which, despite its inanity and obnoxiously unsubtle yay America undertones, is a movie I enjoyed when I first saw it (and even now) because those negatives were outweighed by the positives. It was, for want of a better term, 'cool' while Pacific Rim wasn't. A lot of this had to do with a charm of a cast that included Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum doing some of their finest work, as well as the fact the characters were more well-developed and had far more interesting backstories and motivations; had Pacific Rim had those kind of hooks in its mix it would have been a much better film.

What's surprised me, though, is how poorly it's done at the box office in the USA – according to Box Office Mojo at time of writing it's taken less than $100 million there. It's a far better film than the aforementioned Transformers sequel, but that piece of celluloid excrement made four times as much money domestically.  But for whatever reason, the same people who flocked to see that didn't feel the same way about Pacific Rim.

It's done fairly well overseas, though, so there's talk of a sequel; I'd like to see that happen, actually, since I think it might stand a chance of being head and shoulders better than the original if they bother to sit down and think up a better story to underpin it. Best bet for my money would be a prequel set earlier in the timeline. I'd certainly love to see a movie in that universe with something more substantial to draw me in.

¹The name for the giant machines the humans operate in the film; it's German for hunter.
²As I like to tell people, my thoughts on Revenge of the Fallen can be summed up by what I said at the time: "I wish instead of seeing it I'd paid Michael Bay twenty bucks to set me on fire and piss out the flames."
³Probably not as surprised as the producers, mind you.
⁴Something, incidentally, I've experienced with Del Toro before; Hellboy 2 was a big disappointment after how much I enjoyed the first one.
⁵Burn Gorman is showing up all over the place these days; he's recently been in The Dark Knight Rises, The Hour, Revenge and Game of Thrones. And, scarily enough, I'm looking at him right now in Torchwood.