Pacific Rim - 2013 - Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
There are two things about video games I can't stand. One is the tutorials in the beginning. Enough already, I just want to play. The worst? Watching someone else play one. Unfortunately, I experienced both of these emotions watching this film.
The human race has met its match when the Kaiju, enormous sea monsters, rise from the depths of the Pacific Ocean and begin attacking and killing thousands, leading to the creation of Jaeger's, robots which take two humans to pilot.
Charlie Hunnam is Raleigh Becket, one of the first to pilot one of these robots and brought back years later as the apocalypse looks inevitable. He is paired up with Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), a survivor of a Kaiju attack while just a child who now must learn to harness her vengeance in order to complete their mission. They are led by Commander Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), a man of few words, who helped raise Mako.
The set up is promising. The delivery is disappointing. When it becomes obvious that the Kaiju are only attacking along coastlines my first thought was why do people still live there? I would rather move and be homeless than live in a kill zone. There are scenes and dialogue straight out of other films. Considering the talent of all involved, especially Director Del Toro (who made the masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth), I expected more originality.
The actors aren't given much to do but they do try. Elba is especially good at conveying emotion and leadership without speaking and there is some chemistry between Hunnam and Rinko but basically this is Transformers in the ocean.
Recently the SyFy channel gave us Sharknado. There is more originality in the title of that movie than there is in this entire film.
Rating: 4 out of 10
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