Mico E. Aquino                                                                                  July 17, 2013

2-O                                                                                             Film Critics Circle

Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim is a great movie, in its own right. It's one of the major blockbusters students would want to watch after taking long tests or submitting projects. But Pacific Rim, like any movie, also has it downsides. Let's find out what those downsides are.

In the beginning of the movie, the screen will flash the definition of Kaiju and Jaeger, two things that the movie revolves around. The problem with these definitions is that they used "Giant Beast" to define Kaiju, when in actuality, Kaiju means "strange beast". Although this won't be seen as an error by most people, I pointed this one out because it can imply that the people who made the film can be a little illiterate.

The concept of having two pilots share a brain to pilot a Jaeger is awesome to some people, but what they don't know is that this concept was introduced as far back as the '90s, with a movie like Robot Jox, where robots would fight it out for some sort of competition, and Japan's G Gundam, from the very popular anime franchise Gundam, whose concept is very similar to Robot Jox and Pacific Rim in a way. In G Gundam, pilots would fight in a competition using Gundams that are built with the fictional Mobile Trace System, which allows the Gundam to move the way its pilot can move. This Mobile Trace System is somehow similar to the system used by Jaeger pilots. Now, what the downside here was that Jaeger pilots can't handle the strain put by the system, and thus have to get a co-pilot. I don't know what de Toro was thinking. If he was going to base some elements of the movie on certain Japanese anime TV shows, he might as well include an element that somehow puts the Jaeger pilots out of a corner. Then again, if you don't like cliched scenarios where the protagonist always has nothing hindering him, this movie might be a change, since the pilots must both synchronize their brains before piloting a Jaeger. And wings. D@#N EVA WINGS! THOSE JAEGERS JUST GOT UGLIER WITH EVA WINGS!!!!!

One more thing about this movie is the design of the Kaijus. Now don't get me wrong, I love the Kaijus. But was it really necessary to base their designs on certain anime mecha that made most people puke in front of their TV sets? Take the Knifehead Kaiju. If you watched Macross Frontier, you would notice a striking resemblance between Knifehead and the red Vajra. Or another kaiju somewhere in the movie whose name I've forgotten, somehow it looks like the Evangelion Unit 01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion but a little fatter and a little less... skeletal. The point is, though, is that del Toro must have run out of ideas on what the Kaijus would look like, and instead decided to incorporate the designs from certain anime mecha to his monstrosities. What he did was nice, if he's planning to have certain people like me not like his creation. AT ALL.

The plot. Oh, that plot. There is that "I-raised-her-because-she-lost-her-parents-so-I'm-not-allowing-her-to-fight-simply-because-I'm-her-guardian." between Pentecost and Mako. Then there's that VERY CLICHED "Oh-look-he-saved-the-world-I'm-going-to-like-him-now." A LOT OF CLICHED STUFF, I TELL YOU.

Score for Pacific Rim: 8/10