"Long ago, legions of monstrous creatures called Kaiju arose from the sea, bringing with them all-consuming war. To fight the Kaiju, mankind developed giant robots called Jaegers, designed to be piloted by two humans locked together in a neural bridge. However, even the Jaegers are not enough to defeat the Kaiju, and humanity is on the verge of defeat. Mankind's last hope now lies with a washed-up ex-pilot (Charlie Hunnam), an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi) and an old, obsolete Jaeger."
2013's Pacific Rim gave us something that made every single inner child squeal in glee. It gave us a film where we got to fight the Godzillas of the world on their own level. With Rock 'em Sock 'em robots! As far as a review goes, that is really all you need to know, isn't it? There are giant monsters (Kaiju), there are giant robots (Jaeger), and they get to fight. But if you are looking for something more in-depth then sure. Let's do this.
Pacific Rim combines the fantasy and science fiction genres bringing giant building-sized monsters to attack civilisation, resulting in the creating of giant mecha to battle them. the film is over 2 hours long so some additional plot devices have been manufactured to fill in the time. This does mean that while there are great kaiju/monster battles, a lot of the film will actually focus on the smaller human drama.
One of the big limitations of the Jaeger is that they are so large and complicated that it requires the brain-power of two compatible pilots to operate. Kaiju being an international threat Pacific Rim becomes a United Nations-style deal with teams from a number of different countries taking part. This is where the film starts to lose points. Once you start introducing human characters and human-based story arcs, they need to be competent or you've taken away from the premise of the film for no good reason. It is almost as if the dialogue and acting directions were given by 10-year-old children with most characters being the most stereotypical characters conceived (I'm surprised the Australian characters didn't throw any shrimp on the barbie...), with Asian characters and locations thrown in to not so much add to the film, but to simply pander and appeal to the Chinese market.
The characters are so flimsily written that you don't really care about any of them. The only exception is Idris Elba, who manages to pull off a doomsday speech that could rival Bill Pullman's Independence Day speech. There are certain side stories that are important to the lore of the Pacific Rim universe and will be relevant in the sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising. But these plot lines are still one of the weaker parts of the film.
The strength of the film is in it's CGI and its action sequences. With great detail in both jaegers and kaiju, what is most impressive is the sense of size and weight despite the lack of practical effects. These giant monstrosities look heavy, and they move like they are heavy. The only downside to the CGI (and it might come down to budget constraints), but there is so much of the film that takes place in the dark, in the ocean, in rain, amongst smoke and dust, and it all blocks out and obscures the best parts of the film. Nothing worse than getting to the best part of the film and not being able to see what is going on.
Overall, the film is way longer than it needed to be. Fluffed up with unnecessary human story arcs to try and create a franchise, Pacific Rim almost falls into the B-grade category. Luckily, the action and visuals are absolutely stunning and weighty, making up for a convoluted plot and weak characters. Giant robots are still something that hold great nostalgic value and Guillermo del Toro did a great job in bringing that part of our childhood back to life. All about those Big Boys Toys.