Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba
In 2013, the first attack by a race of underwater monsters known as Kaiju was witnessed. After a series of more attacks on Oacific Ocean coastlines, international governments put forward an initiative of creating giant machines to destroy those beasts. Raleigh Beckett (Hunnam) loses his brother and co-pilot (Diego Klattenhoff) trying to stop a Kaiju attack. After retiring to work in construction, Raleigh is called back to help stop a massive series of Kaiju attacks that could destroy all human life on the planet.
From the director of the critically-acclaimed films The Devil's Backbone (2001) and Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim is a love letter to Japanese Kaiju (giant monster) and Mecha (giant robot) genres and as such is almost like del Toro's extrapolated an anime into a live-action film with bright colours, flamboyant characters and wall-to-wall action. This isn't the first time the anime aesthetic has been pushed into live-action. The Wachowskis did it with Speed Racer (2008), but here it's executed to a greater effect. Every inch of the film is soaked with CGI (and some impressive 3D imagery, which is rare) and there's little room for character development or depth. It is pretty much one big action set piece followed by another and is extremely dumb. But, to the film's credit, I believe that was the intention. As much as the aural and visual battering does become too much after a while, this is essentially Mike Hodges' 1980 film adaptation of Flash Gordon for the Michael Bay generation. About as subtle as a shotgun blast to the face, it's enjoyable if you just switch your brain off or join in with del Toro's obvious sense of affectionate goofiness
No comments:
Post a Comment