Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim got hammered pretty hard by a lot of confused critics who apparently only know Guillermo del Toro from his more artistic magical realism work and somehow missed Hellboy, Mimic, and Blade 2. Pacific Rim belongs solidly to the latter camp, but it's a labor of love and is missing none of the flair that makes del Toro films so special. At its core it is essentially a Western Super Sentai film; heroes suit up in giant robots to battle monsters that are invading our dimension... And that's it. You can foist all sorts of allegory onto this movie if you want, and you can plumb it for deeper meaning- it's rich enough- but at the end of the day it's a thrilling adventure about friendship, big robots, and monster punching. Wet blankets need not apply.Short summary: a portal to an alien world opens under the ocean and giant monsters come out. The governments of the world team up to battle them, eventually doing so with Jaegers, huge robots piloted by two psychically linked pilots who must act in tandem to control their war machines. For a while this goes swimmingly, but the money dries up and the monsters keep coming, and soon the fate of the world rests on crusty and intensely likeable Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) who runs the world's last 4 jaegers in an endless war against the monsters out of Hong Kong. Pentacost has a plan to destroy the portal that brings the monsters to earth but to do that he recruits emotionally scarred Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) who must copilot with the impetuous and vengeful Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) for one last big mission. Cue a ton of fighting and explosions.This film showcases a lot of newcomer actors to great effect. The burgeoning friendship between Mori and Becket is particularly well done (it is best described as a guy-girl bromance really) and the rest of the cast does science, runs from monsters, or is Ron Perlman (yes that's a role now) very effectively. Idris Elba gets to play to his strengths very well here and chew a lot of scenery as an AGING HERO with SAD SECRETS, and lest you think that del Toro will craft a strong black lead then stick him in an office like every other director, rest assured that Pentacost punches monsters in a big robot too.Of course the fights are the meat of the film and they do not disappoint. The robots and monsters convey a powerful sense of size and weight, as their enormous fists, tails, and jaws gnash and hit with weight and authority. Fights are almost wholly digital affairs and perhaps to save money they are usually in rainy darkness, but they are still exciting and tense. The multi-stage throwdown in Hong Kong at the film's peak is one of the best giant monster battles ever committed to film and I say that as a die-hard Godzilla fan.Some critics have panned this film for a lack of depth, but the truth is that it does what it wants to- deliver a summer blockbuster- and it does so with unprecedented depth. Its writing, performances, and effects easily put it on par with The Avengers as a smart summer action romp, and to disrespect this film because it's not another Pan's Labyrinth is sort of like saying a really good ice cream sundae is undeserving of your time because it's not a baked Alaska. Lest we overlook it too, Rim is also an ORIGINAL film in an industry plagued by remakes, sequels, and general unoriginality. You don't have to buy it (although I would) but you should absolutely see it in theaters or rent it at least once. Don't miss out.PROS-Endearing performances from a young cast (with help from some veterans)-Way, way better than Cloverfield-Blends Artsy del Toro's flair for eerie creatures and dream imagery with comic geek del Toro's love of SMASH POW BAM-Effective ear bug soundtrack will stick with you-Really good 3D if that's your thingCONS-Some of the other Jaeger crews are not very well developed-The very beginning crams a lot of exposition in pretty fastUPDATE 10/21/2013So I received and watched the disk. The standard version of Rim comes in a handsome slipcase with a fun holographic cover that APPEARS to be removable (although a true collector won't want to of course...). The BD itself is easily navigable and all trailers are skippable. There is a whole other disk of special features which I have not yet watched. Overall this feels very premium, more like a collector's edition than a basic retail set. The case doesn't even have cutouts to save material as many BD cases do nowadays.Picture quality is outstanding overall. On the small screen, and without the slight softening effect of 3D, this actually reveals some sort of cheap-looking CGI in the first Kaiju encounter during the opening narration*. Thankfully, subsequent battles look great. The movie is free from excessive cleanup and boasts the odd bit of grain, making it look very filmic and natural, even when big monsters and big robots are clubbing one another with bits of dockyard.Audio is suitably bombastic and rich, with voices, music, and effects all mixed to a consistent, listenable volume range (I'm looking at you, first two Iron Man films on home video).Overall this is a great Blu Ray and watching it at home the film held up to my initial high opinion.* This is probably because much of this sequence was produced long before editing of the remainder of the film was completed.

Pacific Rim is a story about redemption and sacrifice. Charlie Hunnam is a former Jaeger pilot who lost his brother fighting giant Kaiju that came through an interdimensional portal. Idris Elba brings him back for one more battle. The movie is Guillermo Del Torro’s ode to Japanese Sci-Fi and anime. The beasts are called Kaiju, Japanese for monsters. The Jaegers are giant robots which was commonly used in Japanese kid TV shows and in anime. Both the Jaegers and Kaiju are brilliant CGI creations. They provided plenty of action. There’s a bit of comic relief as well thanks to Charlie Day who plays a Kaiju researcher. I’ve liked this movie since the day it came out in the theater and it's still good today.

Charlie Humnan. Idris Elba. Wowza. Fun, tense, clever. I would’ve paid for this movie in theatre and felt the $ had been well-spent. Just loved it! U must watch.

I did enjoy this movie, but it truly requires you to ignore things like gravity, and common sense. If you can get past those things then you'll enjoy it, too.I have not purchased this blu-ray and have never seen this film on blu-ray. However, I did see the film in theaters and thought that it had its ups and downs. It's very similar to just about any anime that you've ever seen with mechs. Evangelion was the first to come to mind. I'm a fan of anime and have watched a number of series that are about mechs. They're entertaining and often stretch your imagination a bit. I walked into the theater with the knowledge that this (my interpretation) was likely an anime made into a movie with real people to appeal to a broader audience. I wasn't disappointed on this front. This movie is mechtastic. However, I feel like Del Toro missed something when he decided on how the mechs would battle (Semi Spoiler: there was a convenient scene that you'll wonder why something that would have been extremely useful during an entire battle wasn't used until the end). Things like this are what made me rate this a 3 star film. It's good, and I would happily watch it again, but IMO it's not worth $30 and it's not a great film that I'll be pondering for days, or going out of my way to rent/buy. I would consider paying $20 for it, but I wouldn't truly be interested until it dropped below that. Overall, it might be really cool in the home theater surround sound 3D experience, but these inconsistencies and convenient plot maneuvers make it feel more like anime lite. It's not the real thing, but it will do until something better comes along. I would certainly consider renting it from Redbox or Netflix if they had 3D films and will probably rent the 2D one anyways, but again, purchasing it for $30 seems bit steep. This is especially true when considering that I would probably only watch it a few times, and possibly use it to showcase my 3D and surround sound.. It's enjoyable and appeals to the younger more destructive kid in a lot of people, but it's not a movie that you want to look at too critically.Update: 10/21/13After reading multiple reviews of the 3D blu-ray on multiple websites I decided to go against my better judgement and see if this movie was really as good as people said on blu-ray. The fact that I heard that this movie makes great use of rear surrounds and I had just purchased a new set was the deciding factor. First off, I owe an apology to anybody that did not purchase this movie on my account. If you have an HD/3D TV and/or a 5.1 - 7.1 sound system that can hold its own, then this movie is worth the money. In other words, the plot is still a bit cookie cutter and doesn't do a lot to surprise you, but it is a movie that is aware of what it wants to be, and really shines if that's what you're looking for. The picture, sound, and 3D quality are top notch. If you want to test the LFE on your subwoofer and see how well your sound system holds up then not 5 minutes into this movie you might be getting calls from your neighbors about the sound. The 3D is amazing. Simply put, it's very difficult to believe that it wasn't filmed using 3D cameras. The underwater, snow, and rain scenes are amazing and the sound effects make it feel like you're really there with very minimal, and very forgivable ghosting every now and then. I would strongly recommend this movie to someone that has a 3D TV and a capable surround sound system, but would be reluctant to do so without both. The 2D picture is amazing and someone with an HD TV (sans surround sound) would probably enjoy it, but they would be missing out on a lot of what this film has to offer. If you are in this group, then I would suggest renting it to make up your mind. It's a good movie if you are looking for something that looks beautiful, sounds great, and provides a real good vs evil beat 'em up style to it. However, if you are hoping for more depth to the story than that.. Well, you best just keep searching. This is a good movie with great visuals and sound. I upped my rating one more star due to these factors. I know that many owners of 3D TVs will purchase a movie solely for the picture, so if you're in that bucket then do yourself a favor and press the buy now button. This movie is up there with Avatar so far as the 3D goes. Again, I apologize to any readers that disregarded this film after reading my initial review. Hopefully this followup helps you out in your decision.

Great price and value!

I bought the special edition dvd to watch this kaiju film for the first time. Not seeing PR in the cinema was lucky, as my first impression was that it's a leave-your-brain-at-home, cheesy, campy, kid's movie. There's no great nudity, sex scenes or swearing in it. However, after watching the film a few times and seeing the bonus content on disc two, I've come to appreciate the making of it. If you're a builder of robots you'll know that giant mechs are implausible because of the weight-to-power problem: The heavier and massive the robot mech is, the bigger and stronger the servo motors you'll need to move it. Bigger motors means added weight, so you'll need stronger servos to move the added weight, and so on until the weight-to-power ratio becomes a losing game. The kaiju genre is Japanese, but there's scant representation of Japan here, except a token Asian girl (played by the stunning Rinko Kikuchi), but her role is played down and somewhat putdown by her overly angry, stupidly yelling, Western counterparts. The acting is over-the-top dramatic and the tension between characters is so forced and artificial that it seems like a parody of the genre. There's a couple of Australians (still Westerners!) whose dialogue is incomprehensible (without English subtitles on) that they might as well be speaking a strange foreign language. Incidentially, I'm not sure why they've portrayed a harmful neural interface ('drift' as they've called it) since the mech is obviously slaved to the driver's physical movements like a puppet through an analogue haptic suit and not controlled via their brain. In the bonus content, the concept artists say they've looked at big, real world excavation machinery as reference for scale, but we don't get the scope or scale here like we do in Cloverfield (which is a kaiju-inspired film) or Gareth Edward's Monsters (and also his Godzilla film), each of which seem to have better CGI renders and physics (it could also be about camera angles and pov?). The artists should have looked at the life-sized Gundam kinetic statue in Yokohama, or even the Liberty statue on Liberty Island, from ground level for more appropriate scale references. Strangely, Gillermo has applied this annoying lens fog or 'haze' over every scene that typically low budget films use to hide cheap and awful visual effects and CGI (so, essentially Gillermo has made a mega expensive movie look like a low budget one!). Anyway, if you're a rabid fan of Michael Bay-tarded films, you'll be a big fan of this cheddar; there's lots of fighting, big explosions, cgi to beat the band, and virtually no plot or character development to get you thinking. I won't hold my breath that the sequel, Uprising, is any better. If you actually want to see a dexterous mechsuit, look up Hacksmith's Aliens Powerloader videos on youtube, it doesn't walk (it rolls on catipillar tracks) but it's the closest thing yet to a real life mech suit.

I avoided buying this movie for a while, thinking it was part of the transformers series, but it is something completely separate.Great action and the 3D effects are some of the best I have seen.

An excellent sci fi action movie and I love it when I get the blu ray dvd that comes with the slip cover. Even better again is the slip cover is holographic art work.

Not an exceptional film by a long chalk. I didn't expect much in the way of a story line in this kind of film and was thankful that the kids enjoyed it. My main criticism is the poor quality limited edition case and the high price. I would have expected better for the money. The disc door at the back barely closes once opened and without great care discs can get trapped in the door.

Film's great- no problems there. But if you're buying the BluRay steelbook version, be aware it's the single disc version and thus doesn't include the Directors Notebook feature and deleted scenes. Which is made doubly annoying when the disc's packaging claims it does! Not the seller's fault by any means- they've advertised it how it's presented on the packaging slip- but it does kinda effect the purpose of buying a collectors edition if stuff's missing! And it was missing the download code, too, but that's a pretty common thing in my experience.