Pacific Rim

There is a little moment during the epic awesomeness that is the Hong Kong battle sequence that sort of encapsulates why I love this movie so much. I will explain what all of it means a little further down, but here is the moment. The Jeager Gipsy Danger has just demolished a Kaiju and is on its way to defend Hong Kong and take on another crazy Kaiju and the Jaeger gently steps over a bridge in the middle of town instead of just crashing through it. It is that level of humanity that pushes Pacific Rim above so many of the thoughtless action movies that we get today. The entire world is at stake, our very essence of humanity is literally being destroyed and it looks like we are in our last days, and this giant machine being operated by two humans steps over a bridge that, if they are successful in defending Hong Kong, could still be used. It is the smallest of touches in an otherwise massive hulking film,but it spoke to the director's idea of humanity. Plus, the devil really is in the details and in a summer where people are focusing on the amount of property damage Superman caused, it was such a breath of fresh air to see this little moment. Of course, Pacific Rim is ultimately about giant human controlled machines battling Dinosaur looking monsters, so the little details are going to get overlooked in favor of all of the awesome.

in 2014 San Francisco was attacked by an alien (Kaiju) from the sea. Some sort of fissure opens up and a portal was created allowing these aliens to attack from the sea. One city went down, then another and another before humanity pooled its resources and the Jaeger Program was created. Jaegers are giant machines controlled by humans. The humans are synced up to the machine a process called drifting. Two humans control each Jaeger. They operate inside the Jaeger's head and their movements control the Jaegers. When the Jaeger program first launched, humanity started winning and soon the Kaiju were treated like jokes, and the Jaegers were the new celebrities, but with each attack, the individual Kaiju were learning how to combat the program and they were winning. Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam) was a Jaeger pilot until he lost his partner in a particularly brutal attack. The two pilots are connected in the drift. They see each other's memories and feel each other's pain and they were still connected when Raleigh's partner was taken. He moved on from piloting and is now helping to build a giant wall that has been funded by the Government. The Jaeger program has been defunded in favor of this wall, but Stacker Pentacost (Idris Elba) finds private funding to fund one last Jaeger mission. The mission is to go right to the fizzure and drop a nuclear bomb into the portal and destroy the connection from the alien world to the human world. He has 4 working Jaegers, but needs Beckett back to pilot his old Jaeger again. Once Beckett agrees they are off to Hong Kong to meet the other Jaeger pilots and a young woman named Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi). Mako is in charge of lining up possible co-pilots for Beckett, but when it is all said and done, Mako turns out to be the best person for the job, but Pentacost refuses to let her, until he relents.

Beckett and Mako are drift compatible, but the drift is not a very fun place if you cannot control your emotions and during the test run, Mako gets sucked into her own memories in one of the most effective scenes in the film. This flashback gives us back story on Mako, back story on Pentacost, puts a very real face on the loss of human life, shows off impressive acting from a little girl and takes nothing away from the driving story of the film. It might be the most perfectly placed flashback I can recall in a film. It is a gut wrenching scene as the child actor looks truly terrified for her life. It is another moment in the film that is surely overshadowed by the big action sequences later, but it is another key moment where this giant blockbuster shows the humanity. Meanwhile we are introduced to two very different scientists, Dr. Newton Giezler (The wonderfully wacky Charlie Day) and Gottlieb ( the perfectly uptight Burn Gorman). Giezler is your more hands on, rock star scientist who studies the Kaiju up close and Giezler is a numbers guy. He believes the attacks will get more frequent and that soon they will see two Kaiju at a time and then 3. Giezler wants to drift with a tiny piece of Kaiju brain to find out what they really want and when he is told no, he does it anyway and he sees fragments of a colonization. He wants to drift with the brain again, so he heads off to find a black market Kaiju parts dealer named Hannibal Chow( Ron Perlman).

Now comes the epic Hong Kong battle. Two Kaiju and 4 Jaegers fighting turn this action sequence into one of the single best action sequences ever. I mean this ranks up there with the T-Rex getting loose in Jurassic Park, the battle for Helm's Deep in The Two Towers and last years amazing battle for New York in The Avengers. The effects of this film are mind blowing. Each Jaeger has a personality and each Kaiju has a personality. The design of the Kaiju are stunning. Each has a specific look modeled after creatures we have here. Dr. Geizler mentions that these creatures tried colonizing Earth once before, the dinosaurs, so that is the basis for these Kaiju. They are a marvel to behold and somehow the action between all of these giant creatures is smooth. The CGI and the practical effects work hand in hand to create this wonderfully fluid action. The constant water beating on the creatures creates a sense that these beings are really there. Nothing goes through them. We can see droplets of water hitting off of all of these massive beings. It is really quite spectacular to watch. As the Kaiju adjust to our Jaegers they come with new weapons and new ways of leveling the Jaegers, but the Jaegers find a way. In this insane action sequence, two of the Jaegers are quickly dismembered and a third is pretty quickly left incapacitated. This leaves only Gipsy Danger and the first time team of Mako and Beckett. It leads us to a truly stunning action sequence. By the time the remaining Kaiju spreads its wings, you are already wowed, but then Gipsy Danger opens up its sword and all bets are off. It really is the key sequence in the film. Shot with precision, and paced exquisitely, The Hong Kong battle sequence is worth the price of admission.

Yes, some of the dialog is cheesy, and occasionally the acting is a bit stiff, but Pacific Rim is such a great summer blockbuster. The humor actually works, the effects are insane, the scope is truly epic, the story serviceable for an action movie and the heart is clearly there. The climax is a bit too predictable, but it is still effective. I even found myself choking up during Pentacost's "Today we are cancelling the Apocalypse" speech which does not happen very often during action movies. Idris Elba's Pentacost joins the ranks of great leaders in film. A man struggling with his own mortality still being the man who remains strong for his troops. He makes every costume looks phenomenal and he brings this great energy to the film. Rinko Kikuchi does great work as Mako. She is a strong, yet vulnerable woman who holds her own in a fight, and understand the value of respect. She is a total bad ass, but is not afraid of her emotional side either. It is a great sight in an action film to see a fully formed woman who is never once the object of the male gaze. In fact, Charlie Hunnam is the only one objectified in this film, but with abs like his, he probably does not mind one bit. Pacific Rim is the best summer blockbuster you are going to find this year and it would be the best summer blockbuster in many other years as well. it is shame it never quite found its audience.