Sunday 10 May 2015

Pacific Rim (2013)

I've not seen many Kaijū films apart from the various Godzillas; from the original, through Mathew Broderick to the latest affair which was so dark I couldn't actually see the Monsters.

As I have to start making pizza (yes, I'll add my recipe to the Recipes list when I get the chance) for dinner I don't have the time to write a proper review from my notes so here's a random list of shit I noticed:

From their gung-ho and over-confident start the soldiers are pretty quickly slapped into humility. Fog-horn sound design. Battle of the Planets suits. Wizzy energy weapons. Not sure why damage feedback from the external Jaeger would affect the pilots - but I guess some form of jeopardy was needed else it would be a pretty boring movie. A great sense of the gigantic scale of both the monsters and the Jaeger bots. I didn't understand the whole wall versus Jaeger sub-plot except to highlight the stupidity of politicians; but surely we know that already! Idris Elba is shouty. The hero leaving because his brother is killed and then returning after getting a talking-to by Idris Elba is pretty clichéd. The theory that the dinosaurs were a trial run for the Kaijū is pretty ridiculous and makes a mockery of evolution but hey ho. Colourful and nicely developed characters. Exposition only when needed. No false endings, a la Bay. Rinko Kikuchi is stunning! I liked the James Bond style ending.

Pacific Rim is contrived and jammed full of cliché but still a good looking, sonically super, giant monster movie filled with neon, cables, pumps, power ranger posturing and a fucking bulldog! I used to have a bulldog and I fucking love them!

For two hours I felt like a child again.

Original letterboxd review

No comments:

Post a Comment