PACIFIC RIM in IMAX 3D (My Review)

Honestly, This is not a movie review. It’s actually my love letter to the director Guillermo Del Toro & his movies, a tribute to his imagination, a salute to his infinite passion for fantasy genre, a little token of admiration for his genius.  I am still trying to gather as many words as i can that can help me describe the experience of watching PACIFIC RIM on the world’s largest IMAX 3D screen in Hyderabad. I am still skeptical about writing this piece, as am not sure if i can do justice in describing this big screen wonder, marvellous than all that mindless-transformersque crap, Hollywood has been mercilessly throwing at us since last decade. It took a few hours to come out of the ever-lingering IMAX 3D effect, giving me a dizzy, phew-back-to-reality feeling that i thoroughly enjoyed after coming out of the theatre.

Where do i start? Well there are fist pumping action movies like Avengers. Then there are movies of sheer grandeur and spectacle like LOTR. And then there are grand-schemed-sci-fi movies like Avatar and star trek. And then there are Battleship and Battle LA, which bring apocalypse to apocalyptic genre itself. But here is a movie which is a delicious mixture of all these awesomeness-elements of Hollywood blockbusters and delivers big time through a seamless marriage of sound, brains and visual splendour. Pacific Rim not only unleashes the fury of Monsters and Robots, but also the fury of all action movie buffs, who are sick and tired of endless want-on destruction in today’s movies. Every single punch of the robot on that monster is a metaphorical to Del Toro’s punch on all those save-the-earth formulas of Hollywood.

 The premise of this movie is an old wine in new bottle, ala Independence day or transformers. Humongous Alien monsters called Kaijus are trying to invade earth, hence equally humongous Robots called Jaegers are designed to fight them. These robots are piloted by human beings sitting in their heads, their movements synchronizing with their pilots’. Now that’s old wine. Remember that, these aliens and robots are as big as  Manhattan's skyscrapers. The new bottle is, what if these robots use a cargo ship as an iron rod to smash a monsters’ head ?, what if these things start throwing huge metal containers in the hongkong harbour, as if they are throwing bricks at each other ? What if this movie’s human characters and their stories are not over-shadowed in this grand scheme of “Things”? This new wine is nothing but a movie Del Toro has pulled off on the largest possible scale imaginable, on the biggest possible canvas available and hence quenched the thirst of all the action movie fans for a smart and kick ass entertainer. It stars Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Ron Perlman. 

It said that Del has spent 40 extra weeks on the 3D conversion, monitoring every single frame. That shows how Del Toro has treated this movie, with great affection and child-like enthusiasm. This is the best IMAX 3D conversion i have ever seen. Apart from the initial fight sequence which was blurry, the IMAX 3D pretty much sucks you into the action-zone. Watching those giants fight between giant buildings and vast oceans, smash each other using giant things reminds you of that pleasure, you used to get as a little kid while watching a WWF fight between two giant wrestlers smashing each other with metal chairs and ladders. Every single frame has an amazing depth in 3D and you can see the hardwork put on this aspect. The toughest challenge i believe in this conversion is to retain the hugeness of these robots and creatures, and still maintain an appropriate scaling of them with respect to their surrounding environment, which is relatively smaller. It’s here where the craftmenship of the vfx army comes into play. All the CGI, set pieces, 3D and real life actors blend in with such a meticulous detail from scaling to depth, that the amateur vfx geeks will dive head first into the fodder this movie has given and geek about it for the weeks to come. But i still wished there were more actions set in daylight than at night.

Every single image in this movie qualifies for the movie poster. Though original in content, certain elements of this movie are derived from or referred as a tribute to various pop-culture phenomenons. The wet and murky look of the Hongkong where the smuggler-Don Ron Perlman lives is in reference to the mood and atmosphere of LA in Blade runner. The names of the characters themselves sound very comical. The Basic DNA of this movie off-course comes from the old GODZILLA-MECHA genre movies of Japan. The Kaiju are creatures like a big-arse hybrid-mix of reptiles, the creatures majority of us hate and scared of. They are divided into categories, more the category, wider your jaw will drop in awe of their gargantuan design. To our delight, even their tails and nails start fighting against our poor heroes. The robots are equally huge and Del Toro ensures every robot is unique with respect to its origin country. Attention is given to every detail of the specifications about each robot’s armory and the detailing here is phenomenal to say the least. The thumps of their punches are felt right under our butts, thanks to 7-channel-12,000 watts sound system of Hyderabad’s IMAX.

The fight scenes are not only big and bombastic to say the least, but they are inventive too.  With each new category of kaiju unveiled, comes a new complication we dint see coming and eventually forcing the jargers to improvise a new trick or pull out a new weapon. Hence things keep getting bigger and bigger to our amusement. Amidst those selling action scenes lie those little scenes which have an equally astounding impact, which set this movie apart from the usual soulless apocalyptic actioners. For Eg. That moment in a battle off the coast of Alaska where one picks up a fishing boat in the path of a monster and tenderly sets it aside, like a rubber duck in the bath, A simple shot of Elba's character taking off a helmet is infused with such emotion, thanks to its placement in the story and the sunlight haloing the actor's head etc.. The simple back stories of the characters makes us more relatable to them and avoid bringing lame twists to the movie. Thankfully, none of the characters have those typical daddy issues of self-guilt & anger like batman etc.. Del Toro has hit bull’s eye indeed by making this movie exactly the way he envisioned,” an earnest, colorful adventure story, with an "incredibly airy and light feel". And yes, no human beings are killed in this movie. The cities are evacuated before it becomes a play ground for these bots and aliens (unlike man of  steel).

The casting for this movie defies the usual rules. Here the commander Idris Alba is not wearing a standard military uniform of an army general. The heroine isn’it a sex kitten wearing short skirts and tank tops. The chemistry between the lead pair is platonic but so what ? It is still a lot more romantic than the ones where the protagonists are thrown into dating-live-in relationships eventually. Charlie day & Burn Gorman steal the show in comic department. Watch out for the terrific cameo of the Hell Boy fame, Ron Perlman. And thank god our hero Charlie hunnum is not that accidental wiz-kid teenager who saves the world. He is a trained pilot, suffers a real loss, has a real story. Leading lady Kikuchi, has a sequence involving her flashback, which is the most stunning scene of the movie that will nearly wrack your nerves out of tension. The wonderful images of a shoe in the ash combined with unbelievably amazing expressions of fear and sobbing by the cute 9-year old Mana Ashida, make this the most terrific scene in the movie. Idris Alba is off-course is the most dashing commanding officer, carrying the burden of saving the world and his men and he too pulls off a little comic bit in the middle. The rule that two pilots’ minds are connected as one to pilot a robot, resulting in sharing of their memories, adds the to emotional element in this movie.

I can write about Pacific rim forever, but bottomline, it’s the best movie i have seen this summer. It is so heart breaking to know that this movie isn’it really getting much attention in USA. We got something Hollywood never gives us: an original story with new characters on a massive scale. And what did America do? They went to see Grown Ups 2 instead.

 I don’t blame Americans, they have seen too much of mindless destruction this summer in crap like Man of Steel. They are having a fatigue with apocalyptic movies. But listen to what Bryan Young  an author, American himself said “ We deserve better, America. Pacific Rim is that much better. But if we don't support it, we won't get more of them. Instead, we'll get dark and gritty, like today's Superman. But everything Man of Steel does wrong, Pacific Rim does right. Everything Man of Steel did right, Pacific Rim did better. It's truly the summer movie we deserve. And we won't get more like it if we don't vote with our dollars”. If we, the audience do not pay to original stuff like this, Hollywood will stop investing in original movies like this one and it will continue to make those dumb-arse comic-movies tirelessly in cheap 3D.

I may sound like i have voluntarily taken the cause of promoting this movie, but guess what, it deserves it. Because i loved it so much and Am sure you will love it too. You will love the love of Del Toro put in this movie, on an uncompramising budget of 200 million$. If this movie makes more money, we’ll be lucky enough to have a sequel too. SO, if you think you deserve better movies, then do yourself a favour, Watch this movie in IMAX 3D, coz Giant things are fun to watch in Giant screens. If you are still not convinced, have a look at this trailer. Skip to 2:14 if you are too lazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxnQi1qAvdM

RESERVOIR DOGS (MY REVIEW)

Reservoir dogs (My review)

Which director on this earth will start his debut hollywood movie with the kind of dialogues given below :

“ Let me tell you what Like A Virgin is About ? It’s all about a girl who digs a guy with big dicks. The entire song- It’s a metaphor for Big Dicks“.

Let me talk in his language, Which director has the balls to describe a World famous song, sang by Madonna the superstar, in the above way, that too in the opening scene of his opening movie.  The funny thing is, the director himself is the actor speaking those dialogues. What’s even more funny, is the fact that this a very serious movie, it’s about a diamond heist gone wrong that has turned into a violent Blood-bath. But who has this amazing ability to thrash all those genre conventions into a Garbage Can & recycle it back again in a way he wants to see them ? Which director has this ability to make you laugh in situations where you are supposed to be serious? Yes you know who am talking about !!! It’s none other than QUENTIN TARANTINO.

Only Quentin Tarantino can make a team of Robbers discuss about Madonna, Virgin & dicks while having breakfast before a serious job, stealing diamonds. I mean, thats how Reservoir dogs opens. I can write an article on that opening scene itself. The camera rolls around the table & you would be watching one of the most famous Hall marks of Tarantino movies, the Long Unusual conversations. This is where Tarantino’s dialogue writing ability comes into picture. Watch out for a guy’s explaination on why he never gives tips. Watch how Tarantino himself goes dick dick over a Madona’s song. I am sure you will be addicted to those dialogues like i am, coz it’s not just mere lines, its dialogue porn. It’s amazing how boldly, Tarantino embodies pop-culture references in his movies. His dialogues should be made a separate language called Tarantinise.

I simply cannot control my urge to write all the lines of the opening scene in this article, but i don’t wanna spoil things for the readers. But what follows after that is a series of twists & turns, Flash backs & flash forths of the story. But with Quentin Tarantino, it’s never simple & usual. It’s always unusual & it’s always about some thing, that you have never given a Tinker’s Damn about. This movie is about a diamond heist gone wrong, Robbers on the run hiding in a Ware house, now thats usual stuff. The unusual stuff is how Tarantino tells his story by his choice of bizarre soundtracks, his Black humour, his Pop-culture references & tongue-in-cheek dialogue. He makes his characters talk about Lee Marvin even with all that bullshit around them, he has a cop’s ear chopped off with a hip-hop song playing in the back-ground. He is not a director here, he is the Director-DJ of this movie. And are all the famous hall-marks that the movie-goers have witnessed in his movies since then.

Can you fucking believe the names of our “Heroes“ in this movie ? They are named after colors Mr.White, Mr.Blue, Mr.Orange, Mr.Brown, Mr. White, Mr.pink etc.. One of the characters questions, “ Isnt Mr.Brown a little too close to Mr.Shit ?” , for which the other guy anwers, “ Mr.Pink sounds like Mr.Pussy”.  Got the picture ? This naming scene reminds me of an equally funny scene in Django Unchained, where a bunch of guys are fighting over an issue of wearing masks for the raid. These kind of Black humour moments are the ones that make his movies a fun to watch. And reservoir Dogs has plenty of those in it’s belt.  And not to forget about the amazing ensemble cast, who played the above characters by successfully bringing life to Tarantinise. Especially watch out Steve Buscemi’s remarkable dialogue delivery potraying all levels of a freaked out & a frustrated “Professional”. Micheal “Mad”sen is the monster which your mother used to scare you about as a kid, when you refused have a glass of milk. Watch out for how Chris Penn goes Mad towards the end.  The cast’s performance is what that makes you feel the way you are supposed to in every particular scene. The movie itself, like other of his movies, is divided into non-linear chapters like in a High School Textbook and this time, he names each chapter after his Character (color).

Man !! i can write about Quentin Tarantino forever. But Bottom Line, Reservoir Dogs is one of Tarantino’s earliest Khichidis, which are nothing short of a Genre smashing Recipe, paving a new genre for himself. From non-linear Chapters to aestheticised-violence, it has all the ingredients for which he later became famous in years to come. It defines the way Quentin Tarantino wants to make movies, which is - the way he wants to see it. And believe me, that’s the way we want to see it too.  For me, this movie has the strongest of all his other stories, more  gripping than Inglorious & Django put together & no wonder Empire Magazine named it “ The greatest Independent movie of all time “. Go take a popcorn & Watch it, for sure i know that you are gonna have a blast watching this.