Pacific Rim may not be del Toro’s best work, but you can’t help but admire the unabashed enthusiasm of it. Like a little kid with a $100 million budget to make a film about giant monsters fighting giant robots, del Toro goes over-the-top all the way from beginning to end, and if you put your brain in a jar, it’s just a ton of fun. It also doesn’t hurt he named the robots Jaegers, which happens to be MY name, so the sheer auditory rush of 30% of the lines of dialogue in this film is a very personal, very 10-year-old gone mad kind of glee.
The best parts of the film are-wait for it-the fights between giant monsters and giant Jaegers. My favorite fight is the return to action for the hero robot: Gipsy Rose as it takes on the Kaiju nicknamed “Leatherback”. Any fight where things the size of skyscrapers are pummeling each other with cargo containers is something that is just fundamentally RIGHT. The film is also notable for containing perhaps my favorite character name of all time: Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost. That character’s son (played by John Boyega) will star in the film’s sequel, which has-dare I say-Jaeger sized boots to fill? RISE JAEGERS RISE!
“No pulse.” YEAH!!!!!! 😀
Dear Jaeger Gods, please make the new film good … or if it’s terrible, please make it a good terrible. 🙂
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The thing people don’t get about Del Toro is that while he’s obviously taking Pan’s Labyrinth and Shape of Water more seriously than THIS, he’s putting an equal amount of love into everything he does. Sorry to say though, no one else puts that kind of love into giant robots fighting giant monsters. Del Toro elevated the material. I guarantee these new guys don’t realize the material needs to be elevated, they’re just making things explode.
Wait, I don’t guarantee it. Just a hunch. I hope things work out with your name, man.
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RISE JAEGERS RIIIIIIISE!!!
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I’m sorry for the non-sequitur, but I rewatched Munich the other day, and I’m baffled that you don’t like it. It’s one of the best films of the genre ever made IMO. I can usually countenance differing opinions, but in the case of Munich, hating it is like hating chocolate. At least to my mind. I mean, over the course of my life I’ve known a few people who didn’t like chocolate, but it was WEIRD every time.
I think it’s possible that RP1 is going to be a total return to form, and if it is, if the canary survives that particular coal mine, maybe there’s life in Steve left. I could care less about Indy 5, but he’s casting a West Side Story remake as we speak, and the original film version is not so great, especially if you’ve seen an incredible production onstage. To the point where Stephen Sondheim himself says it’s not so great. I could see Steve running wild with the dark, realistic stuff, and balancing it with the magic of a screen musical, and doing something really special.
Please please please pull off this next one, Steve, because I still have some faith.
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It’s gonna have to be an agree to disagree because I’m never watching that again, but I’m always hoping Spielberg can return to form. I think RP1 certainly has a better chance of my liking it than my namesake film this weekend…which I will probably still see for you people. You wacky, wacky people.
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I assume you’re not lumping me in with those people. I’m as straight-laced as they come.
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Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Scandalous.
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Loved that.
http://thetrippytech.wordpress.com
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