Warning: The following review is my own personal opinion. My views may or may not be like yours, the readers. Do not be aggravated if I like or dislike certain parts of the film.
Pacific Rim is essentially an action movie with a ton of monsters. At first glance, it seems like a combination of Transformers, Iron Man, Halo and Japanese Monster movies. However, upon watching the film, I have discovered the film is more like the Mazinger series and Transformer series had a Michael Bay lovechild.
The movie starts off with some monologue from the main character, Rayleigh, explaining that world first encountered the kaiju when he was 15 years old during the year 2013. How ominous. Then, he goes on to explain a little bit of the backstory of the premise of the film. The basic idea of the film is that Kaijus are to be killed by Jaegers that are piloted by two people who drift (Fuse memories). Before going into a timeskip of 7 years after the initial attack.
Rayleigh is the pilot of Gypsy Danger, a jaeger (Kaiju-Killing Robotic Badass) with his brother. They go out to fight a Kaiju called Knifehead. It's body and name seemingly giving a nod to the Gamera monster, Guiron. Which I think is kind of cute. The monster kills Rayleigh's brother and Rayleigh murders the little bastard.
Then, the movie takes us to another premise, which was the "Wall of Life", a governmental project that aims to build a giant wall to stop the Kaiju from invading and this project discontinues funding for the jaeger project. (I was thinking about Shingeki No Kyojin when they were building the wall)
Honestly, I find this hilariously stupid as governments (Despite being mentally retarded) should not invest so much money, time and lives into building a thin wall that will be destroyed in the next scene. This just makes the government look dumb as hell.
So, the leader of the jaeger program, now funded privately by some Russians, seeks Rayleigh. Rayleigh of course joins the team and is sent to the Shatterdome. The place where the jaegers are kept. We are given a brief introduction of each Jaeger but I wish there would have been more. We are also introduced to the pilots. An asian triplet team, two russian badasses, a father and his scumbag son. Kind of an army, ain't it.
So, after a little bit of a sub-plot with Rayleigh's co-pilot Mako being all emotional and screamy, we are brought into the first real Kaiju battle after the one in the beginning of the film. Two Kaiju appear and that shocks everybody, despite the calculations being present earlier in the film saying that a double event will happen sooner or later.
The Kaiju attack and murder the Russians and the Asians. GO AMERICA! as the white man saves the day again with the Aussies barely surviving.
Then, the plot does not evolve much as there is only a sub-plot where Newton, a kaiju-fanatic/scientist is drifting with a Kaiju brain and the effects that happen afterwards.
The main plot ends up becoming nuke the rift in the Pacific Ocean, which they do, ending up with the death of Kaiju, for now.
So, what did I think about this movie?
I actually thought it was pretty good. The film had a lot of decent action scenes and CGI that is rendered well that would fully immersify viewers. The explosions were a bit like something that Michael Bay's creation but it was done in a way that the explosions were pretty necessary.
The main problem with the film however, is it's constant plot holes. I found a short list on the Internet so I don't have to type so much.
(Source: http://www.movieplotholes.com/pacific-rim.html)
Minor Plot Hole: So over all the years of knowing the inter-dimensional rift exists, no one has ever figured out how to send anything through to the other side until two scientists manage to techno-mind-meld with a Kaiju fetus and learn the rift only opens if you have Kaiju genetics with you. However, not only do the Shatterdome's communications and sensors still track Gipsy Danger when she falls through to the other side, but Raleigh's escape pod somehow makes it back through the rift alone.
Minor Plot Hole: So the Kaiju Leatherback sets off some kind of EMP that instantly knocks out all of the Shatterdome's electronics, communications, and even one of their super-expensive and super-high-tech Jaegers. But fortunately, the several dozen helicopters necessary to transport Gipsy Danger into battle are mysteriously unaffected.
Major Plot hole: So the world governments are retiring the Jaegers because they cost too much and the Kaiju are getting stronger and stronger, and instead their plan is to... build a huge-ass wall around the entire Pacific Ocean. Setting aside that this plan would almost certainly be way more ridiculously expensive than the Jaegers, how exactly is this a long-term solution? Are the world governments basically planning to just let the stronger and stronger Kaiju mass up in the Pacific and just hope their walls hold forever? Their plan is so stupid it almost feels like the movie's writers wanted to make it clear that Marshall Pentecost is the last competent person on the planet.
Plot contrivance: When a nuclear reactor melts down, it does not result in a nuclear explosion. Yes I know it’s a giant robot movie but nowhere in the premise of the movie is it clearly stated that nuclear reactions are different in Del Torro’s world. Hence – shut up.
Plot contrivance: Why pick up objects made of lesser metals to hit monsters with rather than punch them with your super rare-metal billion dollar alloyed fists? It’s like a 200 pounds muscle guy who decides to grab a bag of Cheetos and hit you with it as hard as he can instead of punching you directly in the face. Looks cool – still dumb.
Plot Contrivance: The beginning exposition makes it clear how important a close bond based on common memories is between the Jaeger pilots, and that this bond is extremely rare - so rare that having it is enough to overlook other obvious personal and professional flaws. The introduction to the original pilots reinforces this - pilot crews are brothers, triplets, father/son, and whatever the stereotypical scary Russians are. However, as soon as the plot requires Raleigh to have a new partner he apparently instantly forms an extremely rare instant life bond with Mako, who he knows nothing about except that she's hot. Plot hole, or subtle social commentary about gender politics? You decide.
Unaddressed Issue: To fight the Kaiju, humanity's best option was to build hugely expensive and resource-draining gigantic killer wrestling robots to beat them to death in hand-to-hand combat far off the coasts of major cities. Then, in the movie's ultimate fight, we also learn that apparently nuclear weapons are also pretty effective against level 4 Kaiju and lower. I mean, building gigantic super-robots is cool and everything, but why wouldn't the world's governments just nuke the hell out of the Kaiju as soon as they detected them in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Are they worried about pollution or something?
Also, the acting ain't exactly that good with it's multiple B-list actors and the sounds were a bit too loud for my personal taste.
BUT! The film's action sequences were done so well that I only noticed its flaws after watching the film. So, in conclusion, this film is not bad.
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I also made a video reviews with some friends :D
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