MOVIES! Pacific Rim (2013)

It seems appropriate while in the middle of a Godzilla retrospective to take a moment to rewatch one of my favorite movies of the past year: Pacific Rim. Done initially as a "Fresh Take" when it came out, it's interesting to see how different watching it on a smaller screen is.

It's true that my 32" high def television isn't as awesome as watching these giant robots and monsters fighting on the glorious big screen (I touched upon this in the Fresh Take, discussing how the film's flat 1.85 aspect ratio makes the monsters seem more gigantic). Still, it looks really good on blu-ray. In some senses, it's been a little more enjoyable to watch it on a screen I can take in all at once. With the big theater screens, some of the little things are easy to miss if they're in the corners or if they're in a part of the screen you're not looking. On home video though, you can take in the entire image at once. There have already been a number of little things I've noticed that I missed in both of my theater viewings.

I won't go too into detail about the plot (you can check back on the Fresh Take for that), but suffice it to say it's not a particularly deep film. The story doesn't get too much beyond that of giant robots fighting giant alien monsters. The main theme of the film is the idea of "togetherness." The world comes together to create the Jaegers. The hotshot Australian pilot and the rebellious new American pilot come together to close the cross dimensional portal. Raleigh and Mako come together and open up to each other after suffering trauma to pilot the Gypsy Danger effectively. Even the two scientists come together despite their earlier rivalry in order to discover the motive for the kaiju.

To director Guillermo Del Toro's credit, the summer action flick does not glorify the violence here. Yes, it's mindless, visually intriguing action sequences, but Del Toro does not treat the film like a military recruitment ad. He specifically avoids using military terminology, instead electing titles like marshal and ranger. Stacker Pentecost even says outright, "We aren't the army. We're the resistance." The world is bleak and not much about life in the Shatterdome looks appealing.

Del Toro also stated that he wanted to get away from the typical catastrophic summer blockbusters that tend to have a level of cynicism attached. Pacific Rim is his love letter to the kaiju and mecha genres that were so popular in Asia. Instead of going with the dark and somber tones of the original batch of Japanese kaiju films like Godzilla or Rodan, he opted to go for the more innocent age of the late 1960s and 1970s. With the exception of the opening sequence explaining the situation, he is careful to show cities being evacuated before the monsters attack. We then see nothing but empty buildings as they get destroyed. In this way, we are free to enjoy the destruction the same way we could enjoy old Godzilla movies where he would destroy empty model buildings. To be specific, he said, "I don't want people being crushed. I want the joy I used to get seeing Godzilla toss a tank without having to think there are guys in the tank."

Well, that's a fair sentiment and it works for the larger destruction scenes. It is, however, kind of odd that he would say those things then specifically show us shots of pilots inside the Jaegers getting crushed (quite literally, we do see the three Chinese pilots and the two Russian pilots get crushed by kaiju). This actually works out well as it increases the drama of the kaiju fights. We know that there are "guys in the tanks." So we have a little more emotional investment in the fights. It increases the seriousness of them. However, this does wind up contradicting Del Toro's goal of making the monster violence remorseless.

Despite Del Toro's attempts to make remorseless destruction, we do regularly get shots from inside the Jaegers, giving us more of an emotional connection to the fights.

Pacific Rim is corny and fun, like most kaiju or mecha genre films, and it feels a little bit like an old flyboy film. However, it actually plays out more like a sports movie. Raleigh was once a hot shot Jaeger pilot at the top of his game. He eventually gets knocked out of it. Years later, he's brought back in (Pentecost assuming the role of "coach" here) and has to compete with the new hot shot, Chuck Hansen. It's a ragtag group of "players" coming together to "win the big game."

After rewatching it, I'm not quite as in love with it as I thought I was. Make no mistake, it's still one of my favorite films of last year. As a fan of kaiju and mecha films, it's a really nice to get something new made in the genre that isn't part of an already established film or manga series. Still, as awesome as the Jaegers were, the monster designs don't really tickle my fancy. They remind me a bit too much of creatures you can find in Gamera movies (creature design was always a weakness of that franchise, in my opinion). The two scientists are a little too kooky for my taste as well. The whole thing with the kaiju attacking Hong Kong to find Charlie Day was dragged out. There was really no need to show the harvesting of the downed kaiju.

However, something I didn't quite pick up on in my initial viewings was the usage of colors throughout the film. Del Toro is extremely intentional with his use of colors in every scene, giving each character their own unique color scheme. It's a beautiful film with well polished CGI and some awesome sets. I would have preferred more special effects, but the visual effects are top notch.

Perhaps it's Gareth Edwards's Godzilla coming out in a couple of months or perhaps it's that I've been watching almost nothing but kaiju movies lately; Pacific Rim wasn't quite as awesome on the replay as the first view. It's still an awesome, fun movie though and it's still one of my favorites of the past few years. I'm not sure it's a film that non-kaiju fans would really enjoy so much though. The monster/mech fights are really awesome and even with a slightly diminished replay viewing, I still found myself feeling like I did as a child watching old Godzilla movies, thinking, "That's awesome!"

(Just as an aside: when I was at Sundance, I saw the film "Kumiko the Treasure Hunter" staring Pacific Rim heroine Rinko Kikuchi. She might just be one of my favorite actors in the world right now, up there with Kang-ho Song and Chris Evans. See it when it comes out!)