Went to see Pacific Rimjob.
Here is my mostly spoiler-free review.
Pacific Rim is very heavily inspired by several giant robot stories, franchises, and styles. From Robot Jox to Battletech to Gigantor to Evangelion there's a lot of hints of everything. However these never overtake the original creation that makes up Pacific Rim itself, which is great, because it means the movie is its own beast.
What Pacific Rim does well is build a believable, well-detailed, beautiful world and then proceeds to try its best to sell you on it. This is an incredibly detailed film with tons of design and forethought put into every setpiece and prop. It's incredibly polished and visually rewarding, and you really feel like you're neck-deep in the atmosphere. The art style, design, architecture, monster design, and the Jaegers themselves all look fantastic and move with weight and power. This film looks great and sounds great too with some really triumphant, dramatic BGM full of pomp and circumstance.
The battles themselves are great to watch, the Jaegers and the Kaiju wail on each other like a cross between Battletech and pro-wrestling, and every battle is full of nasty damage and crazy blue Kaiju gore. However, the vast majority of the battles in the film take place at night, in the rain, and on the ocean floor, which means that they have to rely heavily on lighting and good camera-angles to convey a fight. Most of the time, they manage to do this, using realistic yet clever cues from helicopter spotlights to the Kaiju's internal jaw glows. That said, there are a lot of murky, water-clogged shots (especially in the harbour battle) where you can't really follow what's happening because it's less of a fight and more of a monster dogpile. But hey, there's some really good moments here.
Then there's the pacing, which is frankly all over the place. The movie begins with a slightly awkward and overly long intro monologue then jumps right into a really exciting and dramatic brawl before reaching the credits, then there's a lull, a short battle, another rather long lull that is probably the worst part of the film, then a really great part, another short lull, and so forth. The problem with this big lull is that it's all about character development, yet a bunch of cast members barely get any screentime. You've got the protagonist, the heroine, a few bits with Striker Eureka's crew, and then rather surprisingly the lion's share of funny moments and exposition end up coming from these two dorky scientist characters who somehow manage to steal the show in the non-robot parts. I think they're inspired by scientist heroes from Godzilla films but here it just seems like a few of their moments could have been shared with the Jaeger pilots instead of happening in the lab and in Hong Kong. Then there's Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon's pilots who get barely any dialog at all and are just there in a few background shots when not fighting monsters despite a rather dramatic introduction of them and their Jaegers at the start of the lull. Also receiving the short end of the stick is Ron Perlman's character who barely gets any amusing lines and doesn't really do much except for a few scenes with the scientists, and Coyote Tango barely shows up at all despite receiving front-billing with the others. On the bright side Mako is incredibly cute and fun and her scenes with her surrogate father and our hero are pretty good.
As to the directing, I think that some lines feel very awkward at points and the whole movie is naturally dripping in cheese, though that's part of the charm. Some actors steal the show, others just feel like extras, and others really are extras. Concerning the plot itself, I think the human side of it is great but everything else concerning the Kaiju and so forth is explained rather quickly and other parts left vague, however to Del Toro's credit the plot resolution and several Chekov's Gun moments are tied in well to the narrative so there aren't really any plotholes.
Ultimately this is a fun film, but it has really erratic pacing and the narrative I found to really drag around the middle as well as some things I would have done differently like character development. However it's made with a loving hand and the action is fantastic, so it's definitely a movie to check out.
7/10
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Ah, we are high school boys,
the miserable high school boys.
If we were girls, we could get popular by doing anything:
rock band, jazz band,
karate, kendo, mahjong, cyborg, synchronized swimming...
On the other hand, high school boys are
useless outside battle and sports anime.
But they're recklessly trying to make a slice-of-life anime about us.
Ah, we are high school boys,
the miserable high school boys.
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