Pacific Rim

[october_midnight]

Alright here goes. Let me start with...

- This will be long. There is so much wrong with this movie it's almost baffling...and I'm pretty forgiving. I fully acknowledge that I like some movies where if anyone were to say 'it sucked', I'd reply with 'yeah, I know.' Read as much as you can...if you want to shake your head thinking 'what the actual fuck.' I'm not joking.
- I'll write it out, as succinct as possible, and then will go back and spoiler tag anything that's just a flat out spoiler, but some of my gripes may include minor spoilers as well so if you wanna go in blind, stop here.
- I love the original with all its flaws. Yes, I know it was cheesy, yes I know ___________...but del Toro, man. You could tell he loved it and why he made this, and more importantly WHO he made it for. This movie is so far removed from the original it's again...baffling. Let's dive in. Bring some Purell. Jesus, I think I might need to write it out on paper first...there's so much.

POSSIBLE AND FLAGRANT SPOILERS BEGIN HERE

- This movie is basically Spy Kids. I'm not making that up. 2/3 of the cast are new recruit pilots. We're talking 13 year olds. Boyega's character Jake Pentecost is basically brought in to help train them, and then whoops, they need to actually fight Kaiju! And whoops, when they do, they're masterfully steering Jaegers despite being 6 months from finishing basic training. LoL ok. There are so many things to make it kid-friendly. There's a snowball fight at the end. GOT YOU! NO YOU CAN'T GET ME! YEAHHH! The theater was 1/3 full of kids.

- The director Steven DeKnight has been openly interacting with fans on Twitter and has mentioned the budget constraints and 'touches' he had to make to the film to make it appease the studio for funding, and it's evident.

- It starts off with Boyega basically narrating the plot of the first movie for those who didn't see it. With legit scenes from the first movie. He's literally reading the IMDB it seems.

- The plot has holes so big you could park your car in them. To start, 'it's been 10 years man...the war's over. some coastal cities didn't ever fully come back, but we're rebuilding.' THEN WHY DO YOU STILL HAVE ALL THESE JAEGERS. We're talking a platoon of about 5 (that you see, could be more) in the Shatterdome that are all new, new callsigns, not a scratch, new weapons, etc. In the first the whole idea was that the governments around the world foolishly deemed them no longer necessary (the wall defense) so they had to go in fists flying with whatever they had left. This time they have a full army, they're training cadets, they've built new Jaegers. For what? You keep stressing there's no need anymore, the script keeps mentioning the war's over...it's been 10 years...who's funding this? Couldn't you slip in one sentence saying something like they were still being built for war purposes like the old days, or for policing people...something. Anything. Fuck this.

- Boyega's charming enough, albeit the constant running joke of him saying how attractive and sexy he is (not lying). Everyone else is expendable as all hell. I can't remember more than 2 of the other names...and those 2 I do, one is the girl he befriends throughout, and the other 'mean girl' Victoria that doesn't like the first girl, but in the end they overcome their odds to band together in a 'I was wrong about you.' way. Yeah, never seen that before. Fuck this. Oh, they kill one of the kids because someone had to die near the end. When they're splitting the kids up in to pairs to fight the final Mega-Kaiju, the two most expendable kids you barely see are stuck together. My wife: 'Oh man, one of them's got to go.' hahaha. And one did. Fuck this.

- Mako is in it Spoiler: basically to tie to the first movie with about 3 minutes of screen time, but whoops. That was fast. Killed off what....15 minutes in?

- The Mega-Kaiju at the end is so dumb. It's a bunch of tiny...they just form together to Voltron in to....it's just so dumb, man.

- The 'big' plot twist with Spoiler: Charlie Day becoming the main villain is weak, and not much of a twist. Ok, he's still drifting with that Kaiju brain, ok it's made him go crazy, ok so there's a bit of Kaiju in his brain now. Crazy. Oh wait, not really.

- The original had one breach. One location they'd come from. There are no Kaiju in this movie until all the drones go rogue...under control from the aforementioned villain in the previous point (first...a corporation is making drones for human protection?...in case Kaiju come back...which they've already stressed 359 times that they know 'will never happen'...they why is anyone even bothering? Fuck this), and in three little groups around the Pacific Rim, stick their little glowing blue cords in to the water and 'we have 3 breaches!' What? They can just open up fissures anywhere? Kaiju can come from anywhere? This hasn't happened with an earthquake or something in the 10 years? They're just sticking these cords like 50 feet below the surface! These drones are like mini Jaegers...in the water they're up 2/3 to their necks? What? Fuck this.

- The attempt at humor is so bad. It's again, very geared towards kids. One of the Kaiju gets knocked down in to a giant chasm that opens up in a city (what?) and of course, the kid pilot makes the Jaeger kneel down and gaze in to the hole. He makes the Jaeger give two giant middle fingers up. I almost walked out.

- The Spoiler: rogue Jaeger is cool enough, but meh. It gets derailed by my last and biggest gripe.

- The fighting, man. Fuckssakes. The trailers made it look less like Pacific Rim and more like Transformers. 'Maybe there's more...' Nope. 'Alright it looks more cartoony, less weighty....maybe...' Nope. It's that bad. In the first movie, these things FELT like they weight a million pounds. They FELT slow and sluggish. When a punch went, it took 3 seconds to hit. You felt the sheer weight. Sure, the fact that it was always in the rain or in the ocean and the water CGI sort of added to it and/or hid it a bit...but they felt like rust-buckets. You saw cables and sparks dropping off when they were hit. It FELT like two people in the head of these giant things...struggling to make it walk due to the sheer damn size of them.

In THIS pile of shit...oh my sweet zombie jesus. All fighting is during the daytime. Sure one is in a blizzard, but we're talking Transformers meets Power Rangers here. Sword fights where it actually looks like men were wearing the motion capture suits and they made them the Jaegers. They're TOO agile. We're talking a full on sword fight two times with fast dodging and sliding trips and kicks. Later on, the 'fastest Jaeger'...I can't even remember the dumb callsign...Athena Ranger or something, is literally doing roundhouse kicks on Kaiju. Jumping dropkicks and shit. It takes away all indications of weight, of gravity...if that makes sense. When the kids are running in the cockpit/head to make it run, they're on like an elliptical track...just sprinting, and the Jaeger is just screaming through the streets. All the fear of 'Damn, it looks like it's all in bright daytime...it looks too cartoony and fake.' It was that 1000%. It pissed me off so much how different it was from the first movie.



I could honestly go on, but I'm legit saying do not waste money on this. Sure, watch it at home in four months, sure. It's fun for a Tuesday night watch to say you've seen it...but seriously. It'll make you physically mad.