Pacific Rim (Dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2013)

Sometimes a movie comes out of Hollywood that is everything that Hollywood should always be- perfect entertainment for the masses. Unfortunately, too often Hollywood churns out rehashes of mediocre material trying to cash in on the “fan” audience. See Lone Ranger for a current example. But Pacific Rim is an original movie by the talented Guillermo del Toro that brings you everything you want in the good old fashioned Hollywood sense. Hollywood that tells a story about people, about survival, about our struggle while appealing to the kid in all of us. While Hollywood is not always rich with philosophical ideas, and Pacific Rim is no exception, I say that this falls in the ranks of dare I say, Jurassic Park?

The movie gets it’s depth from such strong characters, with even supporting characters leaving their mark. Charlie Day and Ron Pearlman particularly shine as comedic relief in this otherwise very dark and dangerous movie.

Pacific Rim is about the invasion of earth by an alien race, the Kaiju, and our resistance to them. Rarely does a movie succeed in making its audience feel that resistance is futile but in the case of Pacific Rim, each step was so difficult, so challenging, that I really didn’t know if we could make it. And for how long? I still don’t know. What happens when the next strike occurs? These aliens, unlike so many others, pose a real threat to humanity. And the only real way to battle them is to create monsters ourselves. True monsters. The resistance Jaegers, large transformer like robots, must battle the Kaiju wherever they attack, including land where giant monsters cause the deaths of entire cities as a result of the battle. But this life has to be lost. We are losing badly and this terrible solution is the only thing between us and total annihilation. It is intense!

Guillermo del Toro succeeds in immersing us in this world. He pays so much attention to detail that again, ever step the Jaeger takes is felt. You see and eel the struggle. I recommend seeing this movie in IMAX in 3D. The 3D is flawless and it really gives you the necessary sense of space within the movie. Imagine being able to see how tall the Jaegers really are. 3D does that for you.

Don’t miss this. It is a truly well crafted, highly entertaining, and even deeply moving movie about our fight for the future. We depend on each other, and we fight until the end.