Runtime: 2 hours, 11 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Quick Impressions:
“Ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA! Ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA!”
Years from now, when I’m old and gray, one of my grandchildren will innocently pick out this tune on a piano, and I’ll either A) lose myself in a traumatic flashback of robot-on-monster action and weep for the world we’ve now lost thanks to a deadly combination of Godzilla and hydrofluorocarbons or B) slam the piano shut on his fingers and growl, “I thought I told you never to play that song! I just forgot it yesterday!!!! It’s been stuck in my head for fifty years!”
Imagine an alternate reality version of Jaws, where every hint of water (even somebody filling a glass from a kitchen tap) triggers the shark’s iconic theme music. Or if you prefer, think of Alternate Psycho giving us the staccato shower theme every time Norman appears on screen, or Bizarro Star Wars where the orchestra plays every character on and off exactly like they’re all Darth Vader (I’m talking right down to each individual Ewok).
I enjoyed Pacific Rim and have lots of positive stuff to say about it, but I can’t lie. If you want to know what I found most memorable about the movie, it’s got to be the film’s loud, simple, and ridiculously overused musical theme. Basically every time somebody moves forward, looks at a robotic suit, or moves forward while inside a robotic suit, we get blasted out of our seats with “Ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA! Ba-da-daaDAAAAAA!” (Sometimes I think “DaDUMMMM” instead, but that’s not exactly what I’d call musical variety.) I mean, come on, people are moving forward for like eighty percent of the movie!
At first I thought, That theme is kind of catchy. Then I thought, This score doesn’t have much variety. Soon I was thinking, Aaaaah! There it is again!!!! Then I started waiting for it, noticing it each and every time it played. By the time the end credits began to roll, it was all I could do not to burst out laughing.
Without meaning to, I hummed the theme on the way out to the car, and my husband remarked, “Yeah, I kind of liked the theme song.”
“It’s definitely memorable,” I replied. In fact, even with therapy, I’m not sure that I could ever forget it. It’s probably going to haunt my dreams tonight (and possibly for the rest of my life).
Normally I barely notice the score of a film (unless I find it exceptional in a positive way) until I deliberately try to consider it. But this one is really overwhelming (and not really in a good way because it never really goes anywhere beyond “ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA! ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA!”) By comparison, all of the themes in Star Wars eventually continue past their opening fanfare and go somewhere else.
So I guess you could say, Pacific Rim gives us good news and bad news. First the bad news—For us paranoid types, the movie gives us one more thing to worry about. If we (as a wasteful, polluting society) continue down our path of global destruction, then by 2017, the dinosaurs will come back to Earth to murder us.
But the good news is, when all of this Godzilla-like destruction goes down, we surely won’t be taken by surprise because we’re going to be tipped off by the loud, persistent, relentless, “ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA! ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA!” The apocalypse is coming, and it’s coming with its own theme music.
The Good:
My husband and I have both been excited about Pacific Rim for quite a while. He’s been looking forward to a potentially technologically innovative sci-fi blockbuster about battling monsters from another dimension while wearing enhanced suits. Meanwhile I was like, “Rinko Kikuchi’s going to be in this movie!!!!!???” (I also really love Idris Elba.) (We both like Guillermo del Toro.)
I was pretty pleased with the way the movie turned out, too, because Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi aren’t just in the movie, they each have a fantastic part (large and reasonably well written with more character development than average in a movie of this nature).
As I was explaining my curiosity about seeing another Rinko Kikuchi performance on the way home, my husband said, “Rinko Kikuchi. What did we see her in before? I’m trying to remember.”
I reminded him, “She was in Babel.”
“Hmm,” he said. “I’m trying to remember…”
I added, “She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Was she…?”
When I added further, “She took off all her clothes,” he was immediately like, “Oh yes.”
(I’m not trying to make him sound shallow. In fairness, it’s been years since we’ve seen Babel, and the scene where Rinko Kikuchi takes off all her clothes is one of the most memorable and poignant in the movie. It’s not some random strip tease. But our conversation did get a guffaw from our ten-year-old who has not seen Babel but is familiar with the concept of someone taking off all her clothes.)
Here’s the thing about Rinko Kikuchi. When she was nominated for Babel everybody seemed to be raving about her amazing performance nonstop all over the lace. Personally, though, I found it hard to get too excited since I thought Kikuchi’s performance was overshadowed by the astonishing, riveting, resonant (and also Oscar nominated) supporting turn from her co-star Adriana Barraza. For me, Barraza’s amazing scenes made the movie. (In fact, Babel has far more rewatchability for me if I fast forward through all the scenes that don’t involve Barraza, Gael García Bernal, Elle Fanning, and Nathan Gamble.) But wow did people rave and rave and rave about Rinko Kikuchi! I was really excited for another chance to watch her act (and intrigued by what she would be like in a popcorn flick like this. Would she speak English?)
So when I heard the names Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, and Guillermo del Toro all mentioned in connection with a summer popcorn flick with a fresh (non-sequelly) concept, I was quite interested. Because of my inability to follow fast-paced action scenes, I would probably have been put off by the Godzilla-Versus-Giant-Ironmen aspect of this project were it not for the involvement of Guillermo del Torro who is a very gifted and inventive visual director. (Pan’s Labyrinth is too sad for me, but I love the guy with the eyeballs in his hands.) Meanwhile, my husband and our ten-year-old wanted to go because “it was awesome.” And my four-year-old was excited to get an Icee.
Rinko Kikuchi’s character Mako was my favorite thing about the movie. She’s a cool character, and she’s right at the center of the story. With minor alterations, her character could have been played by a male actor, and that’s a rare thing these days—a part for a woman that’s meaty enough to give to a man instead. (The dynamic between Mako and Raleigh probably would have been slightly different, but the story still could have worked.) It’s nice to see a female character who gets rescued and then becomes a hero. The character was very vulnerable but also strong, quite appealing. And as an added
bonus, I really loved her hair. I’m fascinated when there’s any amount of blue in someone’s hair.
Playing a great character, Kikuchi gives a really solid performance. She’s wonderful at conveying both intensity and a wide range of emotions nonverbally. And for some reason, she looks more compelling than most people while she’s spying through a peephole. (I could sit and watch her do that all day. I think it’s because of the compelling energy in her face.)
Idris Elba also has a gratifyingly large part. It’s rather nice to find a performance that shows us the intensity of a character’s past trauma’s and inner turmoil without giving us somebody having a total, raving, out-of-control nervous breakdown on the screen.
We do not doubt the depth of Stacker Pentecost’s feelings for Mako or about his mission, but he’s not a man who has the luxury of coming totally unglued, and Elba plays this part very well, with great strength, great dignity, and great emotional depth.
I was also really surprised to adore the performance of the guy playing Raleigh Becket (not the sole protagonist, but definitely a protagonist). Initially, I dismissed Charlie Hunnman as a Channing Tatum knock-off. He looks vaguely like Tatum and also like so many other actors, the kind who are always showing up in the background of movies like Troy and The 300. I was sure for a while that I’d seen him in the background of something as a soldier type, but I think I must have been confusing him with someone else. Anyway, initially this guy seemed very vague and not quite as handsome as he was trying
to be. But after watching him in action for a few minutes, I realized that Hunnman is actually a much better actor than any of those other pretty faces he very vaguely looks like. He gives a relatively strong performance, and his character is much more likable than I’d anticipated. I honestly couldn’t believe how thoroughly he won me over. I’d like to see him do more in the future. He’s a good actor (and he was born on my birthday, one year later).
Max Martini’s the kind of guy who’s been around forever turning up in everything, but he really made an impression on me here. I liked his character and loved his performance. Watching, I kept thinking, When the dinosaur monsters attack, he’s the guy I want protecting me.
Robert Kazinsky (playing his son), also did a good job, though the character left me cold.
Burn Gorman and Charlie Day play quite a cartoonish pair, the kind of bumbling comic relief you’d expect in a movie like The Mummy. Still, I liked them (particularly Day). They make key contributions to the plot and also provide an invaluable resource for teachers. If anyone’s looking for a film scene to screen for students to emphasize the differences between inductive and deductive reasoning, look no further. The pair of them—they’re like a little object lesson!
And of course, just when the movie really seems to need him, Ron Perlman shows up right on cue.
The movie has a lot of action, and it’s very fast-paced. But it also had enough character driven moments to keep me interested. Also—despite all the talk of the impending end of our world—it’s actually very positive and not the kind of thing that so dark, scary, and demoralizing that you can’t show it to children. (Our ten-year-old loved it, but his four-year-old sister—definitely not the movie’s target audience—found it boring and slept through most of it.)
Sometimes, it also seems oddly topical, full of visual symbolism. How many movies are we going to get this summer about walls built to keep things out that—surprise—don’t stand up to an onslaught of said things. The way people keep cautioning Day’s character that what he wants to do is so dangerous and ill-advised is also very interesting. And then there’s the whole thing that happens when the harvesting goes awry in Hong Kong. It’s hard not to see that as visual commentary on current events.
Funniest Scene:
The during-the-credits bit. It delivers on a joke that’s set up earlier in the movie, a parallel that becomes a very effective source of laughs.
Best Scene:
My favorite scenes are Mako’s flashbacks, both in the drift and later. The memory is basically a single scene shown to us in bits. For me, this was by far the most resonant, compelling, and stirring part of the entire movie. That little girl is amazing. Her name is Mana Ashida, and she’s remarkable at conveying emotion. She only has a few lines, really only a few words, but for me, her performance was the highlight of the movie.
Best Scene Visually:
Now I’m very curious. Is it common today in Hong Kong to carry clear plastic umbrellas, or is that a thing of the (imagined) future? Because I was extremely impressed with the eerie beauty of the rainy street scene as all of those neon lights reflected their dazzling colors all over the uniformly clear umbrellas of the people moving quickly through the streets along with Charlie Day’s character.
I was also entranced by the big fight scene in Hong Kong. I couldn’t help thinking, “This would be awesome theming for a street party.” It made me remember a friend’s slumber party in fourth grade, how we all cut apart our glow necklaces and spattered each other (and the walls) with the glowing stuff inside.
The scene of what’s beyond “the bridge” is lovely, too. And I really liked the elevators in that base of theirs.
Best Action Sequence:
My husband said he thought the CGI and the giant robots were extremely well done and very cool, and my stepson thought it was all pretty awesome. Now I tend to get lost in long action sequences of this kind. That’s not the movie’s fault. It’s mine. I stare at the screen. It’s all very overwhelming and hard to follow. And then the next thing I know, I’ve been daydreaming about some old memory or the implications of some abstract question the movie has raised, and I don’t know what happened to Charlie Day.
My favorite action sequence is the one without any suits or monsters. I actually loved the sequence where Raleigh auditions new partners and attempts to select the one he finds the most suitable. I found it riveting and very exciting.
Scene That Will Reveal Whether You’re Me or My Husband:
I considered writing “Scene That Will Reveal Whether You’re a Man or a Woman,” but that seemed like a pretty sweeping generalization. Seriously, though, there’s one scene in the movie when Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) is waiting for Hannibal Chau’s men to bring him something he desperately needs to conduct an important experiment.
The instant that they heard (or felt) something, I knew immediately what was going on. Not only that, I knew the ultimate outcome of what that would be (because let’s face it, conditions were less than ideal). Then I second guessed myself and thought, Oh wait, this is some science thing. This is going to have to do with some redundancy thing that is going to reveal a weakness they need to kill it or something. But no, it was actually what I thought originally. Then I wondered, Did I interpret it that way because I’m a woman? I wonder if that took men by surprise.
In the car on the way home, my husband remarked, “Boy, there was one scene that really took me by surprise!” When I eagerly asked if it was that scene, he replied—just as eagerly—“Yeah, I thought it was going to be a redundancy thing…”
Seriously, I foresaw everything about that scene. When something like that is happening under those conditions, what kind of outcome can you expect? (Do I think this way because I’m a woman, or is it only because I’m not a man? I like the way that sentence sounds, so I’m leaving it.)
A lot about this movie really made me think. Early on, I found myself thinking how convenient it is for the hero in films like this that somebody tells them, “We need you to do something crucial.”
And the hero replies, “I’ll do everything I can.”
And they’re always like, “What we need you to do is fight—fight like you’ve never fought before using cool weapons and possibly giant robots/vehicles.”
Isn’t that convenient? I mean, it’s never like, “We need you to donate a kidney,” or “We need you to use diplomacy,” or “We need you to teach children with developmental issues how to do math.”
I used to feel terrified when I watched movies about people going off to combat, and then I realized one day, “Wait a minute! I think these people actually enjoy fighting and risking their lives and doing heavy lifting.”
I suspect that this is more of a personality trait than anything having to do with gender. (After all, Mako wants to fight). But this movie made me think of such things constantly.
The Negatives:
“Ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA! Ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA!”
Aside from the limited, repetitive, excessively invasive score, I found the movie pretty aesthetically pleasing (despite the fact that I tended to zone out during many action scenes).
The first ten to fifteen minutes didn’t really work for me, though. I thought the narrated exposition was pretty clunky and artless. Then again, the idea was obviously to give us the premise quickly, immerse us in the world so that we didn’t have to sit through some kind of origin story before getting to the heart of the whole thing. Still, I didn’t really care very much about what was happening and found the whole set-up kind of silly (and the narration annoying). It felt like a video game. Now that in itself isn’t a bad thing. (These days, the beginning of a video game can be much stronger than your average movie. My husband is recently having a love affair with The Last of Us, and I was quite captivated by the openings of Fallout and Mass Effect 2.) The thing is, once this movie gets going, it delivers a product way more sophisticated, stylish, and sincere than anything that the first ten to fifteen minutes suggest.
I also thought that the relationship between the Hansens (Herc and his son Chuck) felt a bit irrelevant. Of all the storylines and character clusters, that was my least favorite. Herc is charismatic and wonderful, but his son is such a jerk. It’s hard to get too invested in him, particularly when the movie is filled with tons of other characters, all of them more sympathetic and more interesting.
Also Day and Gorman feel slightly jarring tonally because they definitely behave like they are in a cartoon or a children’s TV show. They’re clearly there as comic relief, but they’re also important to the plot. Overall, I liked them, but they do walk a very fine line between quirky and annoying.
Overall:
Pacific Rim features very strong, likable, central performances by Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, and the relatively unknown (in film at least) Charlie Hunnman. For an action movie that could have been titled Godzilla Versus Ironman, the movie actually offers us some very poignant moments and well-drawn characters. Charlie Day and Burn Gorman can be a little silly, but they provide smile-worthy comic relief, as does the perfectly cast Ron Perlman who is clearly enjoying himself here. My stepson says it’s the best action movie he’s seen so far this summer, and he may be onto something. It definitely has a (for better or worse) unforgettable theme.
“Ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA! Ba-da-da-DaDAAAAAA!”