The Nerdgasmic High Test That Is Pacific Rim

So, those of you who pay any attention to my ramblings on or offline have no doubt heard me muttering about this movie for several months.

Pacific Rim.

Giant robots, fighting giant monsters, summer blockbuster, directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage,) what's not to like?

I am pleased to report:

Nothing.

There is nothing "not to like" in this movie. It's awesome from end to end.

Now, based on the trailers, I was expecting, frankly, a lot less than I got. I was expecting action, explosions, and giant robots fighting giant monsters.

I got that, in spades.

But there actually is a plot, and a lot more depth than I was led to expect by the trailers. In fact, I was quite happy to note that not only not ALL the awesome setpieces ended up in the trailers - MOST of the really slick sequences in the movie weren't revealed in the trailers. Which is a rare treat. A lot of movies these days spoil so, so much with the trailers that watching the actual movie feels a bit like a film-clip Where's Waldo? game, where you're trying to decide which trailer shots are in the actual film, and which got dropped in editing before the release.

Instead...

The basic premise is very simple. A portal, of unknown origin, opens on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

Almost immediately, a giant monster, referred to by the Japanese "kaiju," or "giant beast," attacks San Francisco. It takes days to bring it down with conventional weapons, and the city - and several others - are destroyed.

Six months later, another kaiju demolishes the Phillipines.

Weeks after that, another attacks somewhere else.

In desperation, humanity develops the "Jaeger" program - giant robots - to respond.

That's all in the trailers. But I expect a lot of people who watched the trailers were curious as to why the Jaegers required TWO pilots, instead of one; this seems self-defeating.

So, the movie spelled that out right away; the brain capacity of a single pilot is not sufficient to carry the increased strain of piloting a system as complex and overpowered as a Jaeger without damaging the pilot; two pilots can share the strain and pilot successfully, but only if they're able to connect through the machine - essentially a machine-enabled telepathy - without drowning each other in memories, emotions, and fighting the machine instead of guiding it.

So at least there's some sort of fig leaf towards believability. And that actually becomes a major plot element; the capacity of the pilots to work together is not that common.

Both the Jaegers and the kaiju look great. Del Toro and his effects team, whoever they were, are unsung heroes of cinematography, who will undoubtedly not get the praise they deeply deserve for this movie.

Let me explain.

In this age of digital effects, creatures no longer have to be laboriously constructed by hand. This is true! But as the realism of the effects increases, the detail that has to be put into them to avoid the human brain's tendency to spot inconsistency grows exponentially. Del Toro's team put a tremendous amount of effort into getting the fine details of both machines and monsters to be consistent. (I can't use the term "right," here, because there's no "right" way to construct a giant monster other than "doesn't suck," which is pretty vague.)

I will engage, however, in a bit of vagueness here.

Remember Cloverfield?

Remember how unique and weird the monster was?

It stuck with you, because it had such a unique visual appearance, and yet managed on-screen to look alive, functional if awkward outside its natural environment.

Del Toro and his crew managed this feat, not once, but over and over. The kaiju look fantastic. Each monster is unique; each has different features - although there are common elements, which are explained - each looks realistic and functional, each moves in the manner anatomically suggested by the attachment of its limbs - this is not a small thing.

Remember that the single monster typically carries an entire movie.

Godzilla carried what, 50? 60? More? They milked the hell out of that rubber suit.

In Pacific Rim, each monster represents a feat of creature design equivalent to the Cloverfield monster, and there are tons of different ones in Pacific Rim.

To reiterate a point, this is not a small thing.

Also, they did well with the scale problem; most movies featuring giant anything end up letting the scale grow or shrink a bit depending on the shot they're taking.

Lake Placid leaps to mind.

Pacific Rim did a much better job with this, keeping sizes consistent throughout the movie.

Del Toro also quite clearly understands the most effective purpose and use of 3D, which is to enhance an already awesome shot. The best 3D, in my book, is when they use it to give each scene depth, without forcibly shoving it right up your nostrils. ("LOOK! My movie is in 3D! Here's something coming RIGHT AT YOUR FACE!!! Because it's 3D!!! Like it, fuckers!")

I don't recall a single "it's coming RIGHT AT YOUR FACE" moment in Pacific Rim, and enjoyed the 3D a lot more because of that.

Really, guys, it's 2013. I fucking know how 3D works. So does every potential audience in America. Setting your scenes so you can forcibly remind us that we're in a movie theater, watching a movie, because it's coming RIGHT AT MY FACE, may get an audience to jump, but it doesn't make your movie better. It just takes away from immersion.

I think the only detractions from immersion we really suffered in watching this movie was - from time to time - when I, or one of my friends watching with me, would say something along the lines of "fuck YEAH!" and the other two of us would turn to look, and whoooooo, we're in a theater.

Because otherwise I was  in a crowd, watching the stirring (and admirably brief, and thus character-consistent) "today we are CANCELING the Apocalypse!" speech.

There was more depth than I expected; the 3D rocked; the story was engaging, and better than I expected.

...I was expecting something that could adequately be expressed by the sound, "squeeThumpsqueeThump*WHAMWHAMWHAM*RAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRRskritchBOOMyaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy!"

I got a lot more than I expected. Guillermo Del Toro fucking delivers, man.

The rumor mill, last I checked, says that Pacific Rim's larger-than-originally-expected budget was Del Toro's way of wasting the money he had put together for At The Mountains Of Madness, after the studios screwed with that project so hard he walked.

If this is how you waste money, dude, someone needs to give you a line on some venture capital. Waste some more fucking money. Because even when you're intentionally trying to piss away a huge budget, you make goddamn amazing movies.

For anyone who reads this, if you can tolerate 3D, go see this movie in 3D.

If not, just go see it.

Either way, it's worth every penny of your ticket price - and this may be the only movie this summer I say that about. It's certainly the only one so far.