I’m sorda late in getting this review up but while in NOLA Leah and I got to see a movie at the theaters for the first time in a while. We went with my sister and brother-in-law while the grandparents watched the grandkids.
I was hoping to see
Man of Steel but since my sister had already seen that one, we went with my number two choice which was
Pacific Rim.
It seems that everyone else wanted to see
World War Z instead, but no one really put up a fight so I took advantage.
I grew watching the old school Godzilla movies over and over so this was right up my alley.
Overall, I’d give the movie a 7/10. Reasons for the rating are below.
Pros:
- The movie delivered where it was supposed to. The Jaegers and the Kaiju were awesome. And the action was every bit as cool as I’d hoped it would be. The fact that they got this right made it worth seeing in my mind no matter what.
- The music/soundtrack was perfect. Especially when it came to the fight scenes, the music really added tension and emotion to the battles.
- Prologue – Del Toro covered all the backstory in a quick 5 minute narration while giving flashes of the events being discussed. This was brilliant as it allowed us to get right into the main story rather than suffer through a slow buildup.
- Pacing – The movie never felt like it was dragging.
- Idris Elba – Perfect casting and one of the highlights from an acting standpoint in the film. Great presence.
- Charlie Day – Awesome. Perfect person to provide comic relief. He and Elba brought their A-games.
- Max Martini – a small role, but he played it well.
Cons:
- Dialogue –Yes, there were some great moments like Elba shouting “We are cancelling the apocalypse.” However, this movie was filled with clichéd and stilted dialogue. Dialogue’s one of my pet peeves so I was cringing a lot.
- Casting – After Elba, Day and a couple of others, the casting director really phoned it in. I know the lines were bad, but it seemed at times people delivered it like it was their first day in acting class.
- Acting – See above.
- Ron Perlman – I don’t blame him. I blame Del Toro. Perlman is usually awesome, but he was so underutilized in the film it was criminal. The role he played could have been filled by anyone off the street.
- Script – Several poorly written scenes, holes, and subplots brought in way too late in the game without the proper setup (red shoe anyone?).
- Forced emotional connections – Too many instances where it was obvious Del Toro wanted to tug at the viewer’s hearts. However, I didn’t care about the characters enough for that to even come close to happening. The only exception/setup I thought was handled well related to when “Iceman” and Elba said good-bye to the old friend/dad before the battle at the end.
So, was it worth seeing? Yes. Was it good? Yes. Could it have been great? Absolutely. I know that no script/novel/etc. will ever be perfect but there were so many glaring things wrong with the dialogue/plotting, it makes me wonder how no one noticed them. Or maybe they did, but didn’t care.
Either way, take it for what it is, rather than what it could have been, which is an awesome action movie that makes you feel like a kid again watching Godzilla for the first time.
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