{"id":19574,"date":"2013-07-14T16:50:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T20:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=19574"},"modified":"2013-07-14T16:50:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-14T20:50:27","slug":"pacific-rim-quick-brain-dump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2013\/07\/14\/pacific-rim-quick-brain-dump\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Rim: Quick Brain Dump"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just saw\u00a0Pacific Rim<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I will now commence neural bridge with you.<\/p>\n

We have drift.<\/p>\n

(warning: mild spoilers detected)<\/p>\n

\u2022 This is the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long, long time.<\/p>\n

\u2022 It made me want to go play with toys. Big smash-em-up anime robots and giant monsters.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The movie understands what it wants to be and never deviates from that. That said, it never precisely\u00a0surpasses<\/em> it, either. We are left with a model robots versus monsters film, though perhaps not exactly a\u00a0transcendent\u00a0<\/em>one, either.<\/p>\n

\u2022 This is not a big dumb action movie. It’s smarter and savvier than you think. Also: no gaping plotholes! It didn’t feel rushed or half-baked (unlike nearly all Hollywood tentpole releases these days). Del Toro knows his stuff here.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The action is top-of-the-pops. Generally clear; not shaky. Heartpounding stuff. Some sequences could’ve used a better sense of danger and consequence but for the most part:\u00a0aces<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 A lot of the action is\u00a0also<\/em> repeated in the movie trailers. Like, the scene with the “Boatsball Bat?” (i.e. whack kaiju in the face with a giant ship)? Yeah, that would’ve played\u00a0so much more bad-ass<\/em> if I hadn’t seen it in like, three of the 17 trailers for the movie. As it stood, most of the really cool action beats are robbed of their fist-pumping woo-hoo-ery by their repetition in all the commercials and trailers.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Thankfully, the action\u00a0isn’t<\/em> necessarily what carries the movie. It’s awesome. It’s important. But trust me when I say you’re not just waiting impatiently for the next action sequence to commence — there’s some compelling character drama stuff and worldbuilding going on in the middle. Never drags.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Okay, fine, Charlie Hunnam’s Raleigh character is a bit generic. I really wanted him to whoop it up — I mean, if you’re gonna write in the classic “unpredictable hero who wins the day unpredictably,” then you should really strive to write him as a loose, popping wire. Han Solo is a guy that could swing either way — and further, he appears to be having fun in the story (and the actor in the role). That’s not really true here.<\/p>\n

\u2022 But it doesn’t matter because the real bad-ass is Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori character. So awesome. Actually, there’s a flashback scene of her as a little girl in the midst of some bad shit going down, and that little girl actress\u00a0needs to win a big bucket of Oscars, stat<\/em>. Those scenes are the\u00a0best<\/em> in the movie. Emotionally affecting, exciting, scary, and at the end, triumphant. The kind of scene a Hollywood executive might dismiss as a drag on the film but that really, really anchors the character and the story.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Idris Elba, of course, is rad as fuck.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Although, Idris Elba is given one speech (again seen in trailers) that is so bland and so library paste it feels like you could’ve copy\/pasted it from a hundred other cheesy action movies. “WE ARE MANKIND AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS” is a pretty boring thrust. Any writer worth his salt could’ve put some better rah-rah-rah blood-pumping speechifying in his mouth.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The monsters are a little samey-samey by the end. Like, a few really stand-out, but part of the problem is, monsters have no actual persona. They’re intelligent, but they’re not\u00a0characters<\/em>. To anchor an otherworldly, unknowable enemy like that you need to find some kind of\u00a0human<\/em> evil. That’s why in zombie stories you tend to have some sinister human component to actually bring drama — otherwise, the enemy is basically the equivalent of a hurricane or a earthquake. A little of that in this film (opposing government? it’s set up in the beginning but never goes anywhere) would’ve gone a long way. Human evil is more interesting than alien agendas.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Oh, and can I just say: Charlie Day and Ron Perlman, everybody. *round of applause that goes on long enough to be uncomfortable*<\/p>\n

\u2022 This is the rare action movie where I could’ve used another half-hour added to it.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The climactic showdown \/ end game is honestly a little too easy, too pat.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Despite that, I was still thrilled by it, so. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Anyway. There we go.<\/p>\n

It’s epic fun.<\/p>\n

You should see it.<\/p>\n

And tell your friends to see it.<\/p>\n

And then go see it again.<\/p>\n

Because we need to support films that aren’t reboots or rehashes or sequels or prequels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just saw\u00a0Pacific Rim. I will now commence neural bridge with you. We have drift. (warning: mild spoilers detected) \u2022 This is the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long, long time. \u2022 It made me want to go play with toys. Big smash-em-up anime robots and giant monsters. \u2022 The movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-55I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19574"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19586,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19574\/revisions\/19586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}