First Posted: 7/14/2013
It’s time to take all of your DVDs off of the shelf and toss them into the street where they can be crushed by oncoming traffic. If you subscribe to Netflix, cut your broadband connection with kitchen scissors and kick your television until it’s a shapeless pile of plastic and sparks.
It finally happened. After more than 100 years of filmmaking, the perfect movie has finally arrived in theaters. Congratulations, Hollywood. It was a long and frequently pointless trip, but you did it. Now it’s time to cancel all of those plans for that “Avengers” sequel and burn every single print of every movie that’s coming out for the next year and a half, because once audiences see “Pacific Rim” they’ll only ever want to see “Pacific Rim.” Every movie they attempt to sit through after “Pacific Rim” will be like watching grainy, Super 8 footage of finger puppets being tossed against a screen door. Seriously, I’m not overhyping this. Everybody needs to get their hopes as high as possible before they even consider watching this!
Of course, if you’re the kind of Grumpy Gus or Sour Samantha who’s been living under a rock made of despair for the past few months you might ask, what’s so special about “Pacific Rim?” Well, I’ll tell you what’s so special: “Pacific Rim” takes place in an unspecified future where giant, Lovecraft-inspired monstrosities (or “Kaijus,” as the film dubs them) have emerged from an inter-dimensional portal to wreak all sorts of havoc on earth. This in and of itself would be enough for most movies, but “Pacific Rim” isn’t just about giant creatures that creep and stomp, it’s also about giant robots (or ‘Jaegers’ as the film dubs them) that punch and strangle the giant creatures that creep and stomp. Additionally, the giant robots are operated telekinetically by a pair of humans that awkwardly trot in place inside of the Jaegers’ grotesquely enlarged head. Basically it’s “Transformers” if it was directed by a brilliant, schizophrenic madman instead of a bottle of Axe Body Spray in an Ellen DeGeneres wig.
Unfortunately, some have complained that the storyline is clichéd and the dialogue silly. And, well, it is. It is silly and clichéd. But is this really an issue? First of all, most of the dialogue is being spoken by Idris Elba, Charlie Day, and Ron Perlman in elaborate copper shoes. These are the kinds of actors that could shout indecipherable techno jargon about ‘neural drifts’ or ‘mechs’ and still make it compelling and/or funny.
As for the story, well, any “Godzilla” fan knows that the storyline is something you endure rather than enjoy. The longer you can endure the storyline in any giant monster movie, the greater your reward will be. And let me tell you, once you patiently suffer through all of the scenes where a maverick loner (Charlie Hunnam) learns to be less maverick-y and respect the wishes of his stern (but caring) commander you’re rewarded handsomely with scenes of giant robots reaching into gaping maws of razor-headed Cthulhu-esque beasts, tearing their luminescent, lotus tongues out of their mouths and eventually stabbing them with immense wrist mounted swords. It’s intense and if “Silver Linings Playbook” had ended that way, I probably would have been a lot more tolerant of its grating little quirks.
Really, what more can I say at this point? If this newspaper isn’t currently hovering in mid-air because you’ve suddenly run off to your nearest theater to catch the latest showing of “Pacific Rim,” I will find out who you are and I will punch all of your goddamned pets! And I love pets (except ferrets, hippy).
Rating: W W W W
