As soon as I saw that Idris Elba was going to star in an upcoming movie, I was geared up to go see it. Elba plays the lead in this BBC show Luther that’s just fantastic. If I really admire an actor, I like to go and support their movies. I saw the epically confusing Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy in theaters for Benedict Cumberbatch, and he did a damn good job with his 8 lines. Then, I discovered what Pacific Rim was going to be about.
We’re all grown-ups here, or at least we all know how to hide our inner kid-dom, so let’s be honest. The last two installments of the Transformers series ruined the mecha genre for me (Update: there’s going to be a 4th. There is no hope.) When I first watched the trailer for Pacific Rim and saw that a large majority of the movie was going to be weaponized refrigerators dueling rabid dinosaurs, I was pretty bummed.
BUT. Yes, there’s a but. Luckily for me since I was going to see it anyways, Pacific Rim packs a lot of heart along with a heavy dose of giant robot. The movie begins with an alien invasion. These creatures, called the Kaiju, are not from outer space, and they’re not winning any beauty contests as they emerge from the depths of the ocean. Kaijus destroy city after city until man figures out a way to stop them. So, Man builds piloted robots, or Jaegers. Since the robots demand so much of their Daft-Punk styled pilots, the burden is shared by two people who brain-share. One person’s left brain melds with the robot and the other uses the right brain. The Jaeger strategy works until the Kaiju begin to adapt; suddenly, the Earth’s days are back to being numbered.
Idris Elba plays Marshall Stacker Pentecost, head dude of all of the Jaegers. He sports a permanent no-nonsense expression that encourages respect from assistant Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) and typical let’s-poke-the-bear insolence from our hero Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam). Even still, you never doubt their loyalty to the idea that Stacker Pentecost knows best; Idris Elba creates a rock-solid, empathetic yet stoic character that everyone turns to for guidance.
It was a nice change to see a butt-kicking, blue-haired lady steal scenes from the boys, but Mako Mori was the only female character in the entire movie to have any substantial lines much less character development. There was one other Russian lady pilot who had maybe 6 words of a line, and that was it. The job of a pilot in the movie’s universe is physically demanding, so I guess I can sympathize with the argument that there would thus be less female pilots. However, there is no excuse why there wouldn’t be a lady scientist, Kaiju specialist, Marshall, Jaeger engineer, something! I question how Guillermo del Toro read through this entire movie’s script without realizing that there was at least a hundred male roles and maybe 2 roles for women. Surely that would be pretty obvious.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the movie:
Advisor guy: Suits and ties, suits of lies, that’s all they are Marshall.
Marshall: We don’t need them.
EPIC.
Final rating: 3 1/2 out of 4 Bucket Helmets
Cast/Credit Info:
Top billed: Charlie Hunnam, Diego Klattenhoff, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi
Directed by Guillermo del Toro, and written by Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro. English. 2013. Running Time: 131 minutes. PG-13.
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