Pacific Rim by Guillermo del Toro
Review by Anar M., Youth Reviewer
I’m sure a lot of people would be horrified to hear that I hadn’t seen “Pacific Rim” (2013) until a short while ago. Regardless, I’ve seen it at last, and my impression is mixed.
The premise is intriguing. Giant monsters, called Kaiju, are rising out of a breach in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. To fight them, humanity’s main defence is giant robots called Jaegers, controlled by a pair of mind-melded pilots. One of the Jaegers’ greatest limitations is that the pilots must be drift-compatible, meaning that they are capable of achieving the mind-meld without getting lost in each others’ memories.
In the first scene of the movie, a pair of brothers (Yancy and Raleigh Becket) go into a Jaeger, mind-meld, and then go out to fight a Kaiju. The battle goes wrong, and Yancy dies, with Raleigh barely stumbling out of the wreckage. A five-year timeskip later, Kaiju are coming faster and faster and Raleigh is called back to pilot again.
The plot is fun and exciting, although perhaps a tad predictable; the concept of drift compatibility is fascinating, especially when a drift between a human and a Kaiju is attempted. The characters feel a bit stereotypical; there’s the harsh mentor/commander — the Japanese love interest who surprises everybody by being good at fighting — the mad scientist obsessed with Kaiju — the scientist obsessed with data and mathematical analysis and not particularly good at interpersonal relationships.
There are also inconsistencies in the plot. Quite a few Kaiju-Jaeger battles take place in the ocean, and for some reason, the Jaegers usually appear to be wading through water only about knee-deep. While huge, the Jaegers aren’t that big; furthermore, there’s a later scene where they descend all the way to the ocean floor and are fully submerged. Do the Jaegers have some sort of floating mechanism on their feet? How is it powerful enough to keep their entire bodies above the water? How does the walking motion actually propel them?
Overall, “Pacific Rim” is a fun movie, but one with faults in its logic and its characters. I’m glad I watched it, though, if only because I think drift compatibility is fascinating.