Entry posted by Takuma Nuva
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Last night I went and saw Pacific Rim. I thought it was great. I did not think it was "omg best movie evar".
First, the stuff I didn't like (with a tangents or two).
We had an interesting world with interesting characters. My first problem is that we spent the whole movie "learning" the world and little in the way of "exploring" it. There are so many concepts here that could have been so much more. For example, the "neural handshake" or "drifting" where the two pilots learn the deepest, inner-most thoughts of one-another's psyche. We're told that it takes a strong trust to just let somebody in your head like that and, yeah, we believe it. But we never really do more than scratch the surface.
Similarly, I'd have liked to see more character development. What happened was in such broad strokes and we didn't get to learn about the individuals' nuances. This particularly bugs me concerning our two main characters. We're led to believe that two Jaeger pilots "drift" better when they have stronger personal relationships with each other and/or have similar personalities (or something along those lines). We're given some basic reasons why they work well together, but again, I'd have liked it explored more. However, one thing I really did like was Del Toro's approach to Raleigh's and Mako's relationship...
[...]a love story without a love story. It's about all of the necessary elements of love without arriving at love itself.
...and let me just say, I loved it. This was an excellent story about banding together and forging strong bonds of trust, friendship, and camaraderie, as ham-handed as it may sound on (internet) paper.
The other thing that bothered me was the way the movie was paced. This isn't a big spoiler, but it's one all the same...
We get a taste of the action at the beginning of the movie and then move on to exposition. Ordinarily we'd then see some more action, then some more exposition, etc. Not so here. It's pretty much sample of action, a bunch of exposition, then we finally get a good meaty of piece of action. Suddenly, just when you think we're about to go back to exposition we're at the BIG fight now.
In short, the exposition was pretty much all in one chunk followed by all the action in another. I feel it would have been a better movie if things had been mixed up a little more. We never really get to see how Mako reacts to her first ever fight. I mean, for crying out loud, Mako's test run was pretty hairy. Between that and her personal history, you can't expect me to believe she just walks away from a fight like that and moves right on like she's some kind of seasoned veteran. This would have been a perfect place to see her and Raleigh develop a stronger bond.
Those are pretty much my only gripes. Everything else was awesome. The fight sequences were brutal and a joy to watch. We had the best female lead I think I've personally ever seen in a movie (not made out to be a butch or a piece of eye-candy or any of the usual extremes you see). The special effects actually made sense and didn't go absolutely bonkers on explosions like some sort of Michael Bay film. The designs for both the Jaegers and the Kaiju were phenomenal...
...I think I'm just rambling now and I'm pretty sure I've lost any train of thought I previously had.
It is not a flawless film, but it is certainly one I highly recommend.
TN
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