Pacific Rim

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)

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)

A new movie about an invasion by toerags from another dimension which, instead of NGE (the blues know what I’m talking about), is more similar to Emmerich’s version of Godzilla, eighties style. Guillermo has a lot of strong sides and one (and for the purposes of a summer popcorn movie - fundamental) weakness: he is simply no good at action. Under his directing action turns into a succession of clichés and wonderfully arranged images with no dynamism, inner tension, build up or clarity. No wonder that the most successful movies of his career are those with no action. Despite this handicap, he decided to make a movie based purely on action in massive dimensions. And... And certainly this didn’t turn out to be that proverbial exception that proves the rule, but simply solid Bayism with nice visuals, which might just break the iceberg of racist xenophobia so common in this country. After watching this, every little boy will want to have a little Gypsy Woman figurine on his bedside table. (2013-07-10)

Del Toro serves up pure-blooded mecha anime in live-action form with a properly intensified wow effect. Nevertheless, it is necessary to realise that Pacific Rim is primarily intended to work as a presentation of the mecha genre for the mainstream western audience. Therefore, if we look for adequate equivalents to the film in anime, then we definitely cannot go to the extremes of the genre such as the psychological-existential-theological curiosity Neon Genesis Evangelion or the spectacular self-reflexive and genre-caricature madness of Gurren Lagann. Pacific Rim is rather an equivalent of the genre’s pioneering titles that gets by with an honestly straightforward story and is built primarily on the novelty (in the context of Hollywood blockbusters) of its basic concept of spectacular battles between giant robots and giant monsters. People who have had a brush with anime, or rather Japanese pop culture in general, and have seen a handful of the most highly acclaimed and thus also completely exceptional titles can lament the fact that, in terms of characters and their dramatic arcs as well as the complexity of the given world, there are better mecha films than the first American blockbuster venturing into the vast expanses of the genre. But let’s bear in mind that the purpose was not to make an equivalent of Evangelion, but simply to make the first-ever live-action mecha film that wouldn’t have the form of papier-mâché tokusatsu movies and series, but would be an epic hyper-realistic spectacle in which the main attractions are the dimensions and proportions of the mechs. Similarly as in the case of Hellboy, del Toro doesn’t offer a distinctive interpretation of the existing tradition, but he gets by with fannish enthusiasm over the fact that he got to play with his dream action figures. _____ Regarding the film’s revenues and reception: Based on opening weekend box-office receipts in the US, some predicted a sad fate for the film, but several weeks after its release, Pacific Rim has proven to be a project that isn’t oriented primarily toward the American audience, as it has strong international potential, especially in Asia. During its opening weekend in South Korea, it captured 44.3% of the audience (i.e. 1,160, 636 viewers), and it became a truly massive hit in China, where it held the number-one spot for three weeks, repelling attacks from expected domestic hits, and was on the way to exceeding the revenues of Iron Man 3. Whereas domestic box-office receipts account for half of total global revenues with other Hollywood seasonal blockbusters such as Iron Man 3 and Fast & Furious 6, foreign receipts comprise two-thirds of the total in the case of Pacific Rim. (2013-07-12)

Godzilla meets Transformers. Pacific Rim is the most honest of this summer’s blockbusters, as it doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t and avoids narrative feints and overlapping meanings in straightforwardly bringing very clear content to the term “high concept” (Monsters! Robots! And they’re really big!). (With respect to the anticipated hurricane of merchandising, the fetishisation of technology present in the film deserves special analysis – the characters repeatedly marvel at the power and size of the robots as the camera revels in their design in long shots, which are in some ways reminiscent of the presentation of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park). The plot puts us in familiar positions as viewers, as it is composed of popular sci-fi and military motifs (Earth in peril, neural linking, clones, male rivalry, the best defence is offence). All it requires from us is that we somewhat unthinkingly and completely contentedly watch modified versions of Top Gun, Cloverfield, Independence Day and Hellboy (for connoisseurs, there is a bonus in the form of the Blade Runner-esque neo-noir visual aspect of Hong Kong and a rather inappropriate reference to the famous “nose” scene from Chinatown). Given that its marketing campaign made it very clear what it was going to be about (and that it wouldn’t be about much more than that), Pacific Rim’s lack of originality did pose an obstacle to my enjoyment of the pure entertainment that it provided. The predictability of the plot twists and the restricting of the human element (manifested in the hunky actors who, with the exception of Elba, are interchangeable and uncharismatic) to the necessary minimum – after all, the concept of the Jaeger is based on the “transformation” of humans into a multi-ton steel monster (or an analogy for the cooperative playing of action-oriented games) – make room for a visual and visceral action experience. The heavyweight matches are clear and varied to the extent possible, but they are mainly huge. It’s a dream come true for gamers and comic-book fans. Guillermo del Toro plays like a little boy on a grand scale. I enjoyed the film – not intellectually, but intensely – especially because of its imaginativeness and the sensory experience provided by the combination of the film’s incredible visual aspect and its rock soundtrack. 75% (2013-07-12)