Film: Pacific Rim
Cast: Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Ron Perlman
Director: Guillermo del Toro
If you didn't know what you were in for, the initial narration makes it amply clear. At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, a vortex opened that let in gigantic monsters, aka Kaiju, from another dimension. We have been beating them quite regularly because we found a nice way to do it: build equally gigantic robots, aka Jaegers, and get them to have a punch-up with the Kaiju for a little while and then blast the latter with missiles. Of course a few cities go extinct, but it was a good brawl. Still with me or have you gone to see Chennai Express?
Good, you are still here. Now we enter really silly territory. So strap up. As bad guys are apt to do, the Kaiju get smarter. As humans always tend to, we get really stupid. Our governments decide that the best way to keep Kaiju out is to build walls. I repeat, walls. Made with material available on Planet Earth. Against Kaiju who can flatten a skyscraper by farting on it.
The only guy who thinks this is a bad idea is the wondrously-named Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Elba), the guy in charge of the Jaeger programme, and the first one who would be queuing for unemployment benefits once the walls come up. The good Marshal gets a few good men and the few remaining Jaegers and gets ready for Battle Royale. It’s monsters versus robots. How can it not be awesome? Or stupid? Depending on your point of view.
Guillermo del Toro is a fanboy first, fantastic filmmaker second. With Ron Perlman he made what I believe to be the best transformation of a comic character to screen with the two Hellboy movies perfectly marrying his two personas and spawning enjoyable, yet acclaimed movies. Pacific Rim doesn’t quite reach those heights. Maybe the problem is the expectation one has of the man who brought us the magical Pan’s Labyrinth. Pacific Rim is supposed to be popcorn fun. Not a frame more, not a frame less. That way it is miles ahead of its compatriots. But when the del Toro name comes into the picture, you find it sadly lacking.
Revisiting the Godzilla movies is great for genre fans. For the others you need a bit more. There is not much with regards to story. When the characters are this big, the plot holes also tend to be likewise. The effects are quite good. But with the surfeit of effect-laden pictures, you need to have something extra-ordinary to stand out.
When you are spending millions to show believable monsters and robots, you tend to scrooge on acting names. Charlie Who-nnam unfortunately shows neither the acting chops nor the charisma to carry off the leading man role of Raleigh Beckett. Rinko Kikuchi was heart-breaking in Babel, but has to deal with the terribly written part of Mako Mori and she can’t salvage it. Director del Toro’s lucky charm Ron Perlman rings in the laughs in an entertaining cameo, but by then it is too little too late. It is left to the scenery-chewing Idris Elba to carry the movie on his own. He does that admirably, with a lot of shouting and screaming and also the best inspirational battle speech this side of the mild Bill Pullman in Independence Day. He keeps his word and cancels the apocalypse many predicted Pacific Rim would be. But the lack of support shows.
The question on everyone’s lips will be if it is better than Transformers. I would definitely say so, but it doesn't seem to echo around the world that much. Pacific Rim may actually be less original than Transformers. (Admit it, how many movies had you seen before that were based on a toy line?) It pays homage to the Japanese monster epics, but it still remains a film that resonates with fans of the genre and does not break out. Still it reiterates one fact. We could all do with a little more Idris Elba in our lives.
