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| I meant to do that... |
You
could lay on for 2000 words and give a fair shake to character,
style, and plot; delve into the themes; scour for idiosyncrasies;
examine the pacing, execution, and emotional impact...or you can aim
the sextant straight down the horizon until you reach true noon and
concede you were there to watch a monster movie. It is to this
latter school of analysis I must defer, and I would humbly suggest to
anyone watching this movie they do the same; you will save yourself a
great deal of time and any number of grateful brain cells.
And
you'll end up having a blast, too.
It's
been an old-timey gas reading other reviewers, both professional and
not-so-pro, who have insisted on applying the former school – a
generic 'good/bad' rubric – to 'Pacific Rim', dimly scrying through
some Philosopher's Stone of cinematic aesthetics against which any
movie may be righteously judged. Some of these writers seem to
consider their analysis a matter of such holy import that they've
forgotten just what exactly it is their writing about. 'The
characters are bland,' many bloviate, 'the dialogue is cheesy and the
script is a cliché!'
Yes,
Virginia, it's a movie about giant fucking robots fighting
exo-dimensional beasts the size of the Chrysler Building; if it spoke
to my soul I'd start worrying about my oxygen supply. And then
there's my personal favorite, one I've seen repeated many times:
“Because of such-and-such or this-and-that 'Pacific Rim' falls
short of greatness.” I'll hand out my home address and oatmeal
cookies to anyone who can show me the scale by which these films are
assessed for greatness(!). I'm not deaf and dumb to other's
well-intentioned bitching, especially if it's articulate bitching;
I'm just surpassingly ready to call a spade a spade on this one and
have my fun.
So,
submitted for your approval, the most unpretentious movie you will
see all year, a flick no one would race to describe as 'intelligent'
yet at no point insults your intelligence; a back-slapping,
arm-punching labor of love from Guillermo del Toro, the
south-of-the-border wackaloon who brought us Hellboy and Pan's
Labyrinth. Seems the Earth has been invaded by a very patient
race of colossi who are content to attack one at a time, destroying
everything in their path until finally repulsed, only to be succeeded
by a stronger, more adept replacement that manages to inch humankind
a little closer to the apocalypse with each fresh assault.
The
wormhole through which the jerkface leviathans emerge is located
somewhere in the Pacific, meaning every country with a coastline is
fair game for a one-monster D-Day whenever the clock reaches Oh Shit
time again. Humans have responded with the Jaeger Program, employing
300-foot tall humanoid war machines that can beat the creatures at
their own game. The robos are too unwieldy for a lone pilot to
interface with all the advanced hardware, so control is achieved
tandem, each operator acting like a hemisphere of the brain. To work
in sync pilots are neural linked via a mind-meld called The Drift,
which, like all forms of on-screen brain activity, is depicted by a
hodge-podge of choppy jump cuts shot through a blue filter. Anyway,
the Jaegers work great until the creatures wise up.
Now
at this point I can simply stop writing and you'll be as equipped as
you're ever going to be to make an informed decision as to whether or
not you actually want to see this film. If you're on the edge of
your seat right now waiting for me to get to the point, then
you've missed the point. Robots fighting monsters. That's it.
And
that IS point. And that's the POINT of the point. The joy of
a movie like 'Pacific Rim', you see, is going in with zero
expectations and discovering that you're actually having a hell of a
good time. The even more profound joy is in realizing you're having
a good time and that the portions of the film that do NOT explicitly
feature robots fighting monsters are actually not terrible. With a
premise that could easily have filled two hours with nothing but
special effects and claimed your cash anyway, del Toro cared
enough to book some capable actors and pen a script that playfully
and – I'll say it again – lovingly plums the rich and
storied archetypes of monster movies. All the staples are there,
right where you'd expect them: a brooding hero, a wily girl, a stern
mentor, a grim prelude, a portent of doom, a do-or-die climax, a happy
ending. Add some chest missiles and a dash of Ron Perlman, garnish
with some choice sci-fi goobledygook and sip for two hours. There
are worse ways to ride out a heat wave.
But
make no mistake, there is some intelligence to be found in 'Pacific
Rim', at least as it concerns the script, which is careful to address
most of the logical stumbling blocks inherent in monster movies. We
are told early on why, for example, the good guys can't simply
destroy the dimensional rift with a nuclear depth charge. A little
later we get several minutes devoted to solving another potential
quick-fix when we discover (at the same time as the hero) that
building giant walls to keep the beasties out won't work, either.
Such details are small but they're much appreciated; just because
it's Rock 'Em-Sock 'Em Robots writ large doesn't mean it has to be,
you know, stupid.
But
in case you're wondering, 'Pacific Rim' doesn't phone it in for
passable character content, either. Admittedly, I'd hesitate to use
the word 'depth', but it makes more effort than the bare minimum to
shore up stock characters and their predictable arcs with some
genuine formative moments and thoughtful flashbacks, adequately
serving as the connective tissue for their evolving relationships.
The script employs The Drift as both device to inch the plot along
and as a shortcut to real (and time-consuming) emotional payoff.
Family bonds, be they biological or surrogate, take numerous cracks
at the thematic pinata: father/son, father/daughter, and
brother/brother each have their moment to shine courtesy of The Drift
and its habit of joining the pilot's thoughts and feelings into a
volatile grab bag. Idris Elba, a perennial favorite of the Great
Underused Non-American Actors, does well with what he gets, playing
the stoic last survivor of the original Jaegers forced to improvise
when the program is faced with obsolescence.
Oh,
and did I mention that it's better than 'Man of Steel'? Listen well,
all o' ye, and I'll tell you why.
You
don't have to suffer through a marathon of Merchant and Ivory
snoozefests to realize the emotions movies elicit in us fall into two
broad categories: real and hollow. In any movie depicting human
suffering, our emotional response is dictated by the response of the
characters and how they react to their peril and the imperilment of
their loved ones. Bad or non-existent reactions elicit a hollow
emotional response in us; good reactions elicit a genuine response.
In 'Pacific Rim' we see skyscrapers annihilated, we watch tall towers
collapse and see numerous harrowing escapes. We see much the same
thing in 'Man of Steel'. Yet in 'Pacific Rim' that destruction and
its consequences are never presented as anything other than a genuine
damn shame, a tear-tugger; the carnage is laid before us like a
wounded bird, disturbing yet evocative, and thanks to some terse
dialogue and careful reaction shots, the characters seem evermore
burdened as a result; they respond to the horrors of their plight
with real urgency. 'Man of Steel' gave us a Superman who cut a swath
of violence through the heart of both Smallville and Metropolis and,
frankly, looked like he could give a shit. And if he doesn't care,
then why should we?
That's
why it's better. The floor is open to dissenting opinions.
Cliched?
God, yes, so much so you have to wonder if it isn't part of del
Toro's plan to make us snort popcorn straight into our soft palates.
The elite corps of Jaegers and their pilots are a smorgasbord of
international stereotypes straight out of central casting: the
Chinese robot is piloted by intensely disciplined triplets (because
there's so many of them they use THREE instead of two, get it?!), the
Russian Jaeger looks like a Transformer that had the shit beaten out
of it at the Battle of Stalingrad while the pilots consist of a
platinum-streaked femme fatale and a bearded goliath, and the
Australian contingent is represented by two impossibly squared-jawed
male models who look like they came late from a surfing contest.
Caricatures one and all, but I say again, who cares?
'Rim'
is far from perfect, even for a refreshingly self-aware piece of
summer escapism. It can be slow at times, the appeal of Charlie Day
for anything longer than five sustained minutes continues to elude
me, and the finale utilizes underwater scenes as an excuse to do more
gratuitous slo-mo. The end also seems anti-climactic compared to the
spectacular six-giant brawl that caps the second act, but no one said
this was easy. What's important is that the good far outweighs the
bad, and the end dodges at least one sacred cow by going a different
path with the relationship between the hero and his new, exceedingly
fetching partner. Again, the respect in this flick 'twixt itself and
the audience is happy to travel a two-way street.
So
see 'Pacific Rim'. See it and buy the Blu-Ray and make it enough
money so that they'll greenlight a sequel. Then in a few years time
we can discuss how 'Pacific Rim 2' is superior to 'Man of Steel 2':
The Secret of Lex Luthor's Gold.'*
*title
tentative
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