Pacific Rim: Big Creatures and Giant Robots! Cool!

By seeing the large posters for the film Pacific Rim one would just assume this flick is just another large robot movie along the lines of Transformers. But appearances can be deceiving. Directed and co-written by savant Guillermo Del Toro this movie is set in the not too distant future, when beings from another planet arrive on Earth; however, these creatures don’t come from the sky, but instead a dimensional rift that occurs in the Pacific Ocean (hence the name).

Through this gateway gigantic monsters (Kaiju) emerge and destroy cities bordering the Pacific from San Francisco to Tokyo, Japan. After sending in tanks, jets, bombs, etc to fight the Kaiju governments worldwide come together to start building giant robots named Jaegers (German=Hunter) to battle the Kaiju in hand to hand combat. Jaegers are manned by two people to fight the Kaiju. The duo is located in the Jaeger’s head decked in full body armor with sensors so that they may control the robot. Two people are needed to control the Jaeger, so a mind meld called the drift is performed so they may operate as one. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away so I’ll just sum in up with that this movie is a throwback to the creature movies like Godzilla but with a little of Voltron and Avatar mixed in.

The special effects are amazing and the fight scenes are incredible. There are a couple of small plot holes that don’t make sense, but it’s nice to see a big budget movie that’s not a reboot, sequel, remake etc. The cast features not A-listers but mostly solid character actors to carry the film. Lastly as a New Yorker it’s good to see a movie where cities are destroyed and New York is not one of them. My enthusiasm during the entire movie never waned, and it was nice to be entertained in sheer amazement like a kid. I give it a solid A.

By Maia M.