Pacific Rim 3D

Plot: Kaiju, giant sea monsters from the bottom of the Pacific, are destroying cities on the coasts. More and more Kaiju are coming, and the people of the world build Jaegers, giant robots, to fight them. Jaegers need two co-pilots each to run them, and the pilots need to 'drift,' or mind-meld with each other and with the Jaeger to fight effectively. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) was a great pilot when he worked with his twin brother, but when the brother was killed, Raleigh retired. Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) drags him out of retirement to battle Kaiju in Hong Kong, and teams him up with Japanese cutie Mako Mori (Rinko Kikushi). Both Raleigh and Mako have tragic incidents in their pasts which they re-experience as they 'drift' into each other's brains. In the end, the Kaiju keep getting stronger and smarter, and the last Jaegers need to battle them in a desperate plan to "cancel the apocalypse." [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Pacific Rim gets the Summer action movie right. The visuals are striking with lots of attention to detail. The fight scenes are dramatic, and watching fight is exhausting. Having two pilots is clever since they need to communicate, so you can listen into what they are thinking, and of course it allows from the romantic tension between Raleigh and Mako.

Pacific Rim's  plot is more fantasy than sci-fi, as giant robots a cool way to fight sea monsters, but probably are not the most sensible way, and there are similar gaps elsewhere.  Within the realm of fantasy, Pacific Rim is a lot of fun.  Even though it has monsters, it is not a horror movie. I appreciated monsters not springing out of dark shadows into my face. The super-giant monsters were always easy to find.

Pacific Rim has a truly globalized setting with most of the movie in Hong Kong, and more than a few lines of Japanese from Mako. The movie is just escapist drama, but it does pack the message of cooperating to solve our common problems.

Overall Pacific Rim was fun-to-watch. The characters are engaging enough, though stereotypes. The fight scenes are gripping and actually tired me out while I was watching them.

Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Ron Perlman, Burn Gorman

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro

Rating: 3.0 stars: Fun-to-watch, exciting, always interesting, but still a little too campy to be rated higher. 

More: You gotta love Ron Pearlman is Hannibal Chau, the dealer in dead Kaiju parts. So tough and so cool. 

Even More:.  I liked the 3D. As I said before, this movie looked great. 

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