Pacific Rim (2013)

Pacific Rim (PG-13) - Review

"Kaiju Shmaiju"

Giant alien monsters have surfaced from the ocean, wrecking cities all along the Pacific coast.  Humanity must collaborate and develop enormous robots dubbed "Jaegers" to combat them... mostly by punching and throwing each other's candy colored CGI constructs around the ocean.  Kaiju vs Jaegers is apparently director Guillermo DelTorro's inner-fanboy wet dream, but the production design is as chintzy as the script.  The battles are infrequent and without truth or weight, the multicultural pilot pals are scripted to be riddled with cliched stereotypes while the actors doing the lines come off either hammy or amateurish.  The bewildering pseudoscience subplot is jib-jabbering at its worst that consistently sabotages any forward momentum in the film (i.e. the highlight of Charlie Day's scientist is buried by his interaction with ham extraordinaire Ron Perlman).  It looks like the most expensive CW pilot ever conceived, filled with skittle-colored lights and closeups of "EMOTIONAL ACTING" or junky fake robot visuals.  If there was any chance of a 3rd act turn-around it is scuttled by a supposed last-ditch inspirational speech that is absurdly terrible.  And do the filmmakers understand the final battle is underwater, and the physics are different there?  It all feels completely arbitrary, in a fan-fiction "because I wrote it that way since that will look the coolest" kind of way, ignoring the glaringly obvious fact that this mish-mash ripoff of better ideas from better sources falls on it's shiny metal ass, often and early.

2.5 "End the HA-HApocalypse" out of 10 (BAD)