Okay, okay. Pacific Rim sees giant monsters coming out of the Pacific Ocean after coming to our world via a portal that has formed in the depths of the ocean. At first it is an occasional attack and these monsters (dubbed Kaiju, in honour of the old Japanese monster movies ala Godzilla) are initially considered the same way as natural disasters, but when the frequency of the attacks start increasing the human race bands together to create the Jaegers, massive robots requiring two pilots to link their minds in order to operate effectively. Two of the best pilots, brothers Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff) Becket head out after a particularly nasty Kaiju and not only does their Jaeger get trashed, Yancy is killed. Raleigh leaves the Jaeger program and hides himself in the tide of humanity desperately trying to survive this phenomenal threat.
You may consider the above a spoiler but it all happens in the opening of the film and what follows is a spectacular epic of (if you'll excuse the term) monstrous proportions. The characters really help to show that the world is banding together but once you get past the main players the rest are really caricatures, especially the Russians, I seriously could not believe the Russians! But that all takes a back seat to the real stars of this show... the Jaegers and the Kaiju. Great characters and some very creative sets are all really filling to the main focus of this movie being, you guessed it, giant robots fighting giant monsters.
Some comic relief is to be had through the two scientists researching the Kaiju and the nature of their attacks. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) is obsessed with the Kaiju themselves to the point of having his favourite tattooed prominently on his arm, and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) is more about the patterns of the attacks and mathematical prediction of the when and where. These two make a great team and really help stop the movie from taking itself too seriously.
Pacific Rim is also a love letter to other sci fi movies. Not only is there quite a nod to films like Godzilla, I also felt that Independence Day and Blade Runner added some flavour to the goings on.
At the end of the day your enjoyment of this movie is really going to come down to what you think about the fight scenes. They are creative and spectacular, but also extended and very loud. While I absolutely loved this movie my wife found the Kaiju a bit too much to handle and her enjoyment suffered (she absolutely loved the Jaegers though). I ended up being surprised by how long I had been in the cinema when the movie finished (it is about 2 hours 10 minutes) and I consider when a long movie doesn't feel long it is a great sign. My wife however felt it dragged on too long.
I guess you need to ask the question, do you like the idea of giant robots fighting giant monsters, because no matter how much you like the rest of the movie (and there is a lot to like) the fight sequences are the focus. I thoroughly recommend Pacific Rim but, as you may have guessed, my wife would write a very different review.
In three words - Ocean liner club! (Awww yeah)
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