Despite being a big, blustery blockbuster, Pacific Rim may work best in its smaller moments, a testament to director Guillermo del Toro’s ability to build worlds.
Yes, there are giant monsters fighting giant robots. And yes, they’re pretty cool looking and fun and fantastic. But the little touches added by del Toro are what bring this universe to life.
Set 12 years in the future, the world of Pacific Rim has been ravaged by kaiju (Japanese for giant monster) attacks for more than a decade. The robotic Jaegers (German for hunter) that defend the planet aren’t shiny and new but are dinged up; the suits their pilots wear are scuffed. Like Ridley Scott’s Alien or Blade Runner, this is a future that feels lived in.
Hong Kong, the site of an attack, has been rebuilt around a giant carcass—a kaiju skull serves as a church. A black market in kaiju organs has sprung up, one of the few booming sectors in the global economy. Fiscal collapse is imminent as the world evacuates its coastlines and resources are poured into military programs designed to stop the seemingly endless wave of monster attacks.
The destruction of numerous Jaegers in battle with increasingly sophisticated monsters prompts the world’s governments to build walls around coastal nations in order to keep the rampaging monsters out. But the plan is doomed to fail. The leader of the giant robots, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), has planned one last mission to seal the underwater breach from which the monsters enter our world.
To accomplish his goal, he needs Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), an ace Jaeger pilot whose copilot (and brother) is killed in the film’s opening battle. Raleigh was traumatized by his brother’s death, which he felt firsthand, as the "mental load" required to pilot a Jaeger requires two fighter jocks to engage in a sort of mind-meld that allows them to operate, and fight, in sync. Raleigh finds a new copilot, and a kindred spirit, in Mako (Rinko Kikuchi).
Providing comic relief are a pair of scientists: mathematician Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) and alien biologist/"kaiju groupie" Newton (Charlie Day). Their bickering, and Newton’s dealings with black market hustler Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman), inject a dose of levity into the proceedings and help remind us that, yes, we are watching an utterly ridiculous—and ridiculously fun—movie.
As for the main attraction—the extended battles between mecha-warriors and extra-dimensional monsters—well, what is there to critique? You’re either going to enjoy watching several-hundred-feet tall robots use giant shipping tankers as Kendo sticks against several-hundred-feet tall monsters who spit acid and emit EMPs, or you aren’t. I enjoyed the sequences a great deal, as did the audience with which I saw Pacific Rim. But you can probably tell from the advertisements whether or not this is a film for you.
There are things to quibble about with the script. Internal inconsistencies plague the picture. For instance: Newton informs the audience that the monsters are clones and bred to be killing machines. However, we later find out that one of the kaiju is pregnant, leading to an amusing and imaginative sequence with a baby kaiju that looks kind of cool but totally negates the previous plot point. Unless, of course, life found a way.
This may seem nitpicky, but suspension of disbelief only works as long as the universe in which we are being asked to believe operates in a steady manner. When you start introducing noticeable irregularities into the proceedings you take the audience out of the picture.
Still, this is Grade A Monster Porn. And no one watches porn for the plot.