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.
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