Pacific Rim

1/4

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Robert Kazinsky

Rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Sci-Fi Action and Violence Throughout, and Brief Language

I love big and loud action movies as much as the next guy.  Intelligence is preferred, but it the action is good I'll give the film a little bit of leeway.  But movies like "Pacific Rim" scare me.  Is this where big budget action movies are going?  Are studios so obsessed with just getting everyone on earth in the theater that they've become terrified of having actual characters, plot or even dialogue that might turn the one person on that deserted island away?

The movie is the unholy mix of "Transformers" and "Godzilla."  Think about that.  Could this movie ever have been good?  It sounds like one of those cheesy direct-to-DVD movies you find in the discount bin at K-Mart (not even Wal-Mart will stock something this silly).  But then I learned that Guillermo del Toro had co-written and directed it, so my curiosity was piqued, as was my hopeful nature.  But alas, it was not to be.  This movie is a disaster.  A waste of $180 million.

In the near future, coastal cities are being attacked and destroyed by giant behemoths from deep in the ocean.  The Kaiju, as they are called, appear from the ocean and destroy everything they can.  It seemed as if humanity, the dominant species on the planet for the last hundred thousand years or so would end up on the Endangered Species List.  That's when the world governments set aside their differences and worked together toward a common goal (believe it or not, this is the part of the movie that's easiest to swallow).  They created the "jaeger" program (ironic because that's what you'll need to drink in order to enjoy this movie.  And lots of it!).  The jaegers are robots the size of skyscrapers that are built to take on the monsters.   It worked for a while, but then the monsters got bigger and the jaegers couldn't keep up. Because they're so big, they take two to operate.  That's explained in the movie, albeit not in a particularly coherent way.  Two of the best jaeger pilots are Raleigh (Hunnam) and Yancy Beckett (Diego Klattenhoff).  They're brothers so their bond is stronger. But during an act of ego by the Beckett brothers, the Kaiju they're fighting gets the upper hand and snatches Yancy away to his death.  Of course, Raleigh disappears and sulks over the trauma, until his old commander (Elba) tracks him down when things get bad.  Then he's matched up with an unproven but energetic pilot Mako Mori (Kikuchi), and...

You know the rest.  This is a formula as old as storytelling, and the only new twist that "Pacific Rim" puts on it is to give little snippets of it instead of merely regurgitating it.  This is a 2 hour long trailer for an uber-cheesy version of a movie we've already seen.

Aside from all the usual problems (unnecessary 3D, incomprehensible action sequences, not being able to tell who is who, plastic characters, mediocre acting), "Pacific Rim" has two problems that we rarely see (thankfully) and could sink a movie on their own.

Problem #1: unintelligible dialogue.  Whether it's from thick accents or the incessant blaring soundtrack (or both), I couldn't understand half of what anyone was saying.  The characters could have discovered the meaning of life for all I know.  I'd put off writing the review until I saw it on Blu Ray with subtitles, but the movie is about as pleasant as fresh cow dung regardless of what they're saying so I'm not going to bother.

Problem #2: extremely little dialogue.  Telling a story with limited dialogue is always risky (to date, the only movies that I can think of that did it with any amount of success are "Wall-E" and Sylvain Chomet's "The Triplets of Belleville").  But with "Pacific Rim," it's not an act of ego or artsyness (as is usually the case).  It's the studio wanting to make sure that everyone can "get it."  There isn't a conversation that lasts more than thirty seconds in this entire movie.

What can I say about the acting?  Not much really, since no one has anything to do.  They just have to show up, move around in front of the camera, and make appearances at Comic-Con.  Lead actor Charlie Hunnam, who was so chilling in "Cold Mountain," tries to make Raleigh into a dashing, rule-breaking hunk that is in every movie like this, but he underplays the role.  Rinko Kikuchi tries to do what she can, but it's not much.  And Idris Elba simply looks like he's there only under protest.  Maybe he lost a bet on the way to shooting his TV show "Luther."

I refuse to believe that this disaster can be blamed only on Guillermo del Toro.  I haven't been a "fan" of everything he's done ("Cronos" was overrated and the "Hellboy" movies were cinematic cotton candy,although I liked "Mimic" and "Pan's Labrynth"), but del Toro is no hack filmmaker.  My only conclusion is that it had a lot of studio interference (and this wouldn't be del Toro's first battle with the studios.  Remember "Mimic?").  Evidence for the prosecution is the fact that del Toro's trademark, visually interesting creatures, are not present (although longtime friend and collaborator Ron Perlman has a small role, and his character is part of the only two legitimate surprises in the film).  Both the robots and the monsters look completely generic.

Please, just avoid it.  Unless you're a bad movie connoisseur.