Pacific Rim

So this day has been a weird combination of a lot of movies. Lots of them I won't get done reviewing today but I will by tomorrow... probably. Long story short, I went from Tammy, to The Heat, and while the day was not over with Pacific Rim, it was definitely one of the weirdest parts.

Pacific Rim is kind of difficult to explain because... the truth is its very easy to explain.

The short answer to the question: what is Pacific Rim about? is actually quite simple. Its a movie about giant robots... fighting giant alien monsters... And that's it.

I could tell you its this ground breaking original sci-fi story about alien monsters coming through an interdimensional rift at the bottom of the ocean and essentially bringing the apocalypse to humanity unless a group of humans, piloting giant robots go and kill the giant monsters. And while that's true, I'm not sure if it gives too much credit or not enough credit at all to this movie.

I'll no doubt put the honest trailer of this film at the end of this review, but the best line from it is that Pacific Rim is either the most awesome dumb movie ever made or its the dumbest most awesome movie ever made.

Because...

I mean for god's sake, its giant robots fighting giant alien monsters. There's really not that much to explain.

But I'll at least try for you guys.

Basically, these giant alien monsters come from a rift in the earth's crust. They attack humanity and we suffer a lot of losses. But then humanity comes together and creates giant robots to fight these giant monsters. These robots are piloted by two pilots who share a mind link, or something like that, and are able to control the robot.

The story mainly focuses on Raleigh Becket (played by Charlie Hunnam). He was a pilot for these robots until his brother was killed. Five years later, he gets recruited by Stacker Pentecost (played by Idris Elba) to perform a mission to destroy the rift and save humanity from these giant monsters they call Kaijus. He is paired up with a woman by the name of Mako Mori (played by Rinko Kikuchi) and they must work to be the best giant robot operators and stop the monsters.

For a little bit, I got a slight flair of Top Gun in this movie, like the robot operators were competing to be the best. Which would have been fun. But then you kind of throw that out the window when you realize there are giant monsters that need to be punched by giant robots.

I really wish I could describe this movie a little bit better but the truth is, there's not much more besides, Giant Robots v Giant Monsters. That's probably what this movie should have been called to be honest.

There is a little bit more to the movie. It does have a little bit of a back story on Mako and the technology that goes into the operation of the robots is kind of interesting, although overly complicated.

And then, I think the biggest surprise for a lot of people in this movie was actually the performance and character that was portrayed by Charlie Day.

Now I love Charlie Day. This wasn't always the case, but it took me binge watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for me to just say that Charlie Day is awesome. And what's better is that while Day is very much the same character he plays in a lot of movies, the kind of quirky crazy guy who has this really high voice when he's flustered, Charlie Day is actually one of the more interesting parts of the movie. I actually wanted the movie to stop centering on the pilots of the robots and focus more on him. His part of the movie actually focuses on the kind of monsters they are facing and he gives a lot of direction to the film.

Unfortunately, there's a sci-fi element of this movie including him and (I never thought I'd say this) Ron Perlman that was incredibly underutilized in my opinion.

The world is definitely not the one we're used to and we see that in Day's interactions with Perlman. Unfortunately, all that background of what the world is like now is put aside to a giant robot picking up a fuel tanker and using it like baseball bat to hit a giant monster.

Is it cool? Of course its cool. My inner child was freaking out when I watched the havoc of a giant robot fighting a giant monster.

The point is, I this Guillermo Del Toro knew exactly what he was doing when he made this film. I think the writers knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote this film. This is a ridiculous, over the top film that is a weird crossover with Independence Day, Transformers, and Starship Trooper, and its really kind of a fun ride.

Again, it rides that line being so stupid its awesome or trying to be so awesome its dumb. But its worth a watch, especially if you have nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon.

But those are my thoughts on Pacific Rim. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of the blog. You can also send me your thoughts on Pacific Rim there as well as send me requests for future movies to review.

I'll leave you with this. You saw it coming. Here is the honest trailer for Pacific Rim. Enjoy!