Movie Review : Pacific Rim

The first time I saw the trailer for Pacific Rim, I thought that we were going to have another big-budget, senseless and over-the-top, mind-numbing action Transformers-like movie. But as it turns out I was fortunately wrong. Instead I got a movie that excited me like few movies have in recent years. Comparisons of Pacific Rim to Transformers are bound to take place because both are essentially humanoid mecha (science fiction genre related to robots and machines) movies. The difference lies in execution, thoughtfulness, artistic appeal and sheer enthusiasm with which both the movies were made. Despite having a lower budget than Transformers 2 and 3 , Pacific Rim's special effects are much better as the CGI robots look and feel completely real. If a comparison is done on aspects other than special effects like story, characters and overall appeal of the two movies, then rest assured Pacific Rim outperforms Transformers by many parsecs ( ;-) ).

For me, Pacific Rim is essentially the film version of Megazords from Power Rangers fighting Godzilla for grownups and I don't see how that is a problem.

The movie begins with a quick and crisp exposition by the narrator that sets up a convincing world that would serve as the battle ground for giant mecha robots vs giant monsters death matches. A crack or a portal between dimensions has opened up somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean from which colossal monsters known as the Kaiju(Japanese for "strange creature") emerge to take over Earth by destroying the planet's current inhabitants, us humans. There are shots of the Kaiju destroying some cities and landmarks and shots of news coverage of various attacks and the aftermath of these attacks. These shots are simple and effective in that they show the world which is familiar to the audience but has been transformed by these attacks. The news coverage of these attacks adds authenticity to the fictional world that we see and makes it more believable.

Moving on, the narrator says, "To fight monsters we created monsters" and we are introduced to the Jaegers (German for "hunter"), the giant mecha robots. These were built by many countries working together, to face a common threat. They have a two pilot system each pilot acting as a hemisphere for the "brain" of the Jaeger as the neural load for controlling a Jaeger was too much for one pilot. So, the humans race armed with the Jaegers started winning against the Kaiju and with time Kaijus and the Jaegers entered became part of popular culture.

The narrator upto this point was a Jaeger pilot named Raileigh Becket who along with his brother were a duo that operated the American Jaeger "Gipsy Danger". A warning about a Category 3 Kaiju wakes them up in the middle of the night. There is some banter between them to establish the camaraderie. There is a Star Wars reference when the elder brother says, "Hey kid ! Don't get cocky".

But it is not merely a reference as the essence of Pacific Rim is same as one of the aspects that makes Star Wars great. It is that we are all in this together. To overcome impossible obstacles teamwork and trust in one another are of paramount importance. This has been stressed throughout the film. People from different countries look past their differences and work together to overcome the Kaiju threat. The Jaeger requires two pilots to work together again stressing the importance of teamwork. This is similar to the Megazords from Power Rangers which essentially a combination of smaller Zords.

Next there is the scene where the brothers prepare for the upcoming battle. This is the first time we get a close look at a Jaeger and the effort that goes behind operating a giant robot as large as a skyscraper. The whole setting is as if a F1 car is being prepared for a race. There is the driver and the car, but the team the works behind-the-scenes is equally important. Similarly, there are a lot of technicians going about preparing the Jaegers. The brothers suit up in armor that looks like Stormtrooper armor(Star Wars !). Next they enter a large chamber that has equipment that will be used to operate the Jaeger. At a control center is the commanding officer Stacker Pentecost played by Idris Elba. He has a commanding presence throughout the movie and owns every scene he is in. The chamber that the brothers are in the falls through a tunnel and it emerges at the end attaches itself to the rest of the body of Jaeger.

What !?! The chamber was only the head !

Slowly as the camera moves back the whole Jaeger is revealed and for the first time you appreciate the actual scale of the mecha. The special effects of this film (done by Industrial Light & Magic…Star Wars !) are really impressive. The lighting and the shots are artistically done to bring out the scale of the fights that are taking place. All this time the soundtrack by Ramin Djawadi (of Game of Thrones, Iron Man and Prison Break fame ) is playing and really gets you in the mood for some hand to hand combat with the Kaiju. The soundtrack of the film really gets under your skin by the end. The music when a Kaiju is revealed onscreen changes to a dark and ominous tone with gothic undertones. When a Jaeger is about to go to battle the tone changes to an uplifting one with some sort of grandeur. It was after a really long time that I felt really pumped just by the music of the film.

Moving on the Jaeger operated by the Becket brothers is carried out by a small hive of helicopters out to the location of the battle. A hive of helicopters because the helicopters are like insects (bees) compared to the Jaeger. As the Jaeger is dropped into the ocean and immense waves are generated and yet again the scale of these machines is impressed upon you and you feel really small. You can feel nothing but awe. Taking about waves, water is something that is always present in this movie. The fights in this movie either take place in the ocean and/or it is raining. As two gigantic beings fight it out the water is turned to waves or is splashed or is thrown or drips from them. It must have been created using CGI but it looks completely real. Talking about CGI, the Jaegers and the Kaiju look believable, impressive and colossal. Again nothing but awe.

As I mentioned before , to operate a Jaeger two pilots are needed. One of them would act as the right hemisphere and the other as the left hemisphere. A neural link between the two pilots, called "Drifting", is established similar to a Vulcan Mind-Meld with the pilots sharing the memories, thoughts and experiences. The metaphor here is really simple and effective. The Jaeger represents life and the pilots must work together to overcome obstacles (Kaiju) presented in the life's path. Without working together the obstacle cannot be overcome. Trust and belief in the abilities of others as well as your own are needed to survive.

This next scene was exactly what I wanted to see. The hand to hand battle between the Jaeger and the Kaiju ("Knifehead"). The setting is a dark stormy ocean with waves crashing against the two colossal beasts with a small fishing boat caught in the middle. We are shown the fight from the perspective of this ship and this viewpoint really establishes the scale of the monsters. There is punching and biting and punching and more punching and a plasma gun. The movements slow due to the sheer size of the beings. As the Jaeger moves you can hear the machinery moving inside it. Also,  inside the Jaeger, the coordination between the two pilots required to move the gigantic machine is shown. The Jaeger gets ripped apart by the Kaiju. The Jaeger loses an arm, Raileigh's brother get taken out by the Kaiju and gets killed and Raileigh gets sort of paralyzed as the neural link is broken. With his last ounce of strength he blasts away at the Kaiju with his plasma gun killing it. 

The next scene is on a beach. An old man and a child are looking for treasures with a metal detector and find a small metal toy robot. The child picks it up and says,"It's just an old toy." or something like that. The old man looks at him and smiles. I think the significance of this scene is that the director is saying that the mecha and Kaiju genre are like old toys lost on a beach for the new generation that did not grow up with them. The director is rediscovering and reinvigorating the genre by picking up those old toys and giving it a new life through this movie.

The broken and battered Gipsy Danger emerges from the fog and slowly falls on its knees and then sways groundwards and then slowly falls on its face on the beach. The camera moves away from the falling mecha all the while. This scene again establishes the actual scale of these robots and I cannot stress enough how thoughtfully and artistically the scenes of this movie have been shot. The broken and battered pilot emerges and then he too falls on the beach. It is clear though he defeated the Kaiju, he had not won. The Jaegers are no longer invincible machines but have become actually vulnerable. Within fifteen minutes, the movie has established a believable world that could soon end, it's only hope of defending itself, the Jaegers are now vulnerable and we have a protagonist who is now psychologically damaged and would have overcome many obstacles to reach the end. The future of humanity looks bleak…Are you not interested in this movie already?  

Similar incidents like what happened with Gipsy Danger happen with other Jaegers as the pilots keep on dying and the frequency of the Kaiju attacks increases. The world leaders decide that the Jaeger Program is no longer a viable option and decide to terminate it. They concentrate on building an Anti-Kaiju Wall around the cities. Well, the Kaiju threat would just not go away if you build a wall around it and when a Kaiju breaks through the wall in Australia, the situation really looks grim and despairing. The metaphor is that the world's problems or your own problems would not go away if you just ignore them by building a wall around yourself. A truly incessant problem (or a really massive one) would soon break through your wall and your only option would be to face it head on.

Well, so far the established world is one with giant robots fighting giant beasts on a regular basis. But all the fights and  special effects would not mean anything if the film does not have a human side of the story. Well, this movie does have a human side and it delivers well. First of all, you have the relationship between Raileigh Becket and Mako Mori, the young Jaeger pilot under Pentecost, the commanding officer. She and Becket are damaged individuals and find purpose in working together to operate Gipsy Danger, the American Jaeger that has been repaired. They form a connection in their martial arts combat to test their "Drift" compatibility. The fight scene establishes that by sparring with someone you can discover a lot about them. Both of them figure out when the other will make a mistake almost perfectly and hence would make ideal partners for operating the Jaeger. They fit together like pieces of a puzzle, one filling out the gaps in the other and vice versa.

Next you have the relationship between Pentecost and Mako. It is a father-daughter relationship where the father is over-protective of the daughter who had a traumatic childhood. The daughter in the course of the movie must overcome her father's shadow and go on to face the demons on her own and the father must learn to let go of her daughter. He lets go of her when he gives her the red shoe. The shoe was returned making the original pair complete and also making the Mako's character complete as now she has to stand on her own feet and is no longer under her father's protection. The colour of the shoe(red) was maybe a nod to The Wizard of Oz (1939) which was hailed for its special effects at its time.

Pentecost's character is itself very intriguing to say the least. Suffering the after-effects of radiation exposure while operating the older Jaegers, he kept a stoic composure and a commanding presence throughout the movie. His "Independence Day" style speech ("Cancelling the apocalypse !") sprouted goosebumps all over my body, something which I felt after a long time.

Then there are the scientists, Charlie from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and the guy I remember from "The Dark Knight Rises". 

The "The Dark Knight Rises" guy, let's call him the number guy (as he is always obsessed with numbers and patterns) and Charlie who is obsessed with the Kaiju physiology represent two different sides. One is concerned with abstract concepts and tries to explain Kaiju phenomenon using numbers, while the other realizes that humans would only have a chance of winning if they understand the enemy which he hopes to accomplish by Drifting with a Kaiju. Their differing characters stress a point that the film tries to make numerous times. The point is that we can solve all equations and predict patterns and we can have all the technology in the world but in the end a crucial piece that is fundamentally important is the human element, that is, the ability of human beings is more important than technology. The human element is essentially, according to Pacific Rim, is trust in each other and working together. This is stressed upon when the two scientists must work together and share the neural load of the Kaiju brain thus uncovering key plot points.

The importance of the human element in getting the maximum out of a technology is also stressed in the movie. The Jaegers are only as good as the pilots. Human ability is key. This is similar to the ending of Star Wars when Luke Skywalker switches off his targeting computer to make the shot. He is rejecting technology as he believes he can complete the feat himself. This rejection of technology is expressed in Pacific Rim in the difference between Analog and Digital robots. Analog technology is older and represents a time when humans had faith in themselves rather than depend on machines entirely. Machines and technology are only a tool as means to get somewhere. I feel it is deeply stirring as sometimes we all yearn for a time when technology had not permeated our daily existence. An electromagnetic shockwave from a Kaiju renders all digital Jaegers useless except the only analog Jaeger Gipsy Danger. It is only fitting that Gipsy Danger , the nuclear powered Jaeger, was the one that was that finally defeated the Kaiju.

Apart from the characters mentioned above there is some focus on the Australian father-son duo who are the pilots for the Australian Jaeger. Their part is alright and acts as filler. Then there is Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman). His character is remarkable and provides a lot of comic relief. His death has another shoe metaphor. Charlie picks up his shoe and I thought maybe his character would return and sure enough he does in the end-credits scene.

In summary Pacific Rim makes for a great treat for the senses. The visuals are impressive, the music is invigorating, the story is solid and the characters are memorable. The acting is fine but could have been improved upon (one does not expect an Oscar-worthy performance but slight improvements would have done no harm). The dialogues were simple and effective. The film does rely on stereotypes at points for character development but I am willing to overlook it as the rest of the experience was incredible. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie and I know it is a movie that I will see many times in the future.

Rating : 9.5/10, that is, a soft punch and then nine plasma gun shots at a Category 4 Kaiju to check whether it has any pulse.

Finally, the message that I took home from this movie is :

Sometimes, you need to buckle up and take on your demons head on. Sometimes, all you need is to trust your Jaeger and your co-pilot. Because only together can you accomplish wonders. Also, you need Elbow Rockets, because Elbow Rockets are awesome.    

© mridool