@cleolinda: It's basically the movie Michael Bay THINKS he's been making.
@cleolinda: I spent a lot of it making giant HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK faces. Apparently sea monsters were what I really needed in my life.
@particle_p: How did it compare to Prometheus?
Short version: Prometheus is completely wackadoo and I love it and Idris Elba is also in it. Pacific Rim is awesome in a more... intentional... way. Also, it's Guillermo del Toro, so the 3D was worth it and the monsters are all A+ + + WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SEE.
@cleolinda: Well, gorgeously cinematographed robots punching sea monsters in the face while everyone has emotions.
@cleolinda: The cinematographer actually directed three episodes of Hannibal. Oh, and won an Oscar for Pan's Labyrinth. That.
(Guys! Guys! He's responsible for that episode where our heads exploded!)
(Wait, holy shit, Guillermo Navarro also shot the Breaking Dawn movies? What the hell, y'all.)
@cleolinda: Also, there is a character named Hannibal in it. He sells organs and body parts.
@MartianBethany: Wait, for real?
@cleolinda: Yup. My hand to God.
@MartianBethany: I mean, I was already gonna see the movie, but now I'm trying to figure out if I can watch it, like, yesterday.
@cleolinda: It's the kind of movie where, if you think you'll like this movie, you will REAAAALLYYYYY like this movie.
@cleolinda: It really is like Transformers vs Godzillas, but quality.
@cleolinda: I'm not as over-the-moon about it as everyone else, I don't think, but it was solid.
@cleolinda: Like, it's hard to get me to just spend an entire hour like >:O but it happened.
To the point where I kind of don't even want to spoil which parts totally dropped my jaw. We can get into that in the comments, I guess. I'd say more, but I feel kind of face-punched myself right now. Discuss amongst yourselves while I acquire sustenance.
For one, they actually thought about what it would be like living in a world where giant monsters occasional rose from the sea and attacked coastal cities. That's not the kind of world-building you usually see is summer SFX extravaganzas.
*I- DIG- GIANT ROBOTS. YOU- DIG- GIANT ROBOTS...*
I need to see it again... on a bigger screen. Maybe IMAX... which would be a first for me.
I plan to do a write-up on it, with all the spoilery little bits (that was one blase seagull) behind a cut and a really short review consisting of the "Godzilla vs. Shogun Warriors" bit.
One of the weird little things the film's PR department (or someone otherwise involved with the film) did an odd bit of promo by mailing briefcases full of "Kaiju organs" to assorted film bigwigs... and I thought "Have any trouble getting that through Customs, Dr. Lecter?"
It wasn't an America-Fuck-Yeah story.
The protagonists weren't all white dudes.
Female protagonist wasn't sexual object & actually showed agency/desire/female gaze in admiring her partner.
Emphasis on cooperation.
Things I disliked:
Proportionally, still WAY too many white dudes/dudes. Where are women? Where are way more Asian/Pacific characters with speaking roles?
Jaegers should have been making assaults in concert with planes/submarines/missiles - the whole "we are resolving this with single combat" is ridiculous.
Jaegers should have been making assaults in concert with planes/submarines/missiles - the whole "we are resolving this with single combat" is ridiculous.
So much this. I also disliked how they have this kaiju tracking system, but regardless they seem to be constantly taken by surprise when the monster emerges. Surely there should be SONAR installations tracking these monstrosities as they come in toward their extremely obvious targets.
And let's be real, there's no reason why kaiju need to be attacked up close, as the jaegers do and even the fighter jets were doing in the intro. A missile delivers the same hit regardless of what distance you fire it from. Oh well.
I LOVED IT (and I'm actually editing the AngloFilles episode where we discuss it and other summer blockbusters AS I TYPE). It was AWESOME. WE CHEERED AND GASPED AND SAW IT IN IMAX 3D AND TI WAS BEAUTIFUL.
It is one of the few major releases this summer that isn't a reboot or a sequel. There's an internal logic to it, even within the ridiculousness you have to accept that a mecha is the best choice to deal with the kaiju. I loved that.
I mean, yes, there could have been more and better representation of women, but I'm utterly thrilled.
I've seen a lot of complaints about this movie, not a single one of them really bothered me. Charlie Day took me out of it a little, simply because he's... Charlie Kelly, and when he talks, it is super difficult to NOT hear It's Always Sunny dialogue.
Man. What a goddamn fun movie. I'm wondering if it will decrease in fun a little since it's a lot of "assemble the heroes" like Avengers or the first Star Trek, and sometimes upon 5th watch I'm just like... don't they all know each other yet?
ALSO. Mako Mori. AWESOME.
I noticed this on twitter because I think I literally said the exact same thing on my blog. Great minds! Or something.
I'm actually expectant for the inevitable tumblr wring-out of gifsets and stills from every second of the film since it will let me study the kaiju in greater detail. I think my favorite was the electromagnetic turtle/krogan category 4 from the middle of the movie.
I would have liked to see more female characters with lines, and I would have liked to see Mako go to town on the cocky AUS guy instead of Raleigh (although it might be OOC), but I appreciated the lack of overt romance between the two leads. (The movie WAS shipping them pretty hard though.) Also that while Mako's competence is questioned, it's not because she's a woman (and gender is never brought up or made an issue at any point) but because she, y'know, lost control and almost fired the suit's main weapon inside the hangar.
The only part that lost my suspension of disbelief was the 1) flying kaiju, which then 2) carried Gipsy Danger 3) so high in the earth's atmosphere that it heated upon reentry. I had to go "Movie. Movie. No." at that point. I mean, the giant robots should fall over, the kaiju should collapse under their own weight, yes, but this was double Would Never Happen. IDK.
The part where Mako pulls out the sword had me rolling. I'm not sure if a japanese orphan in a giant robot suit killing a giant monster with a sword while shouting "For my family!" is an homage to any specific anime, but surely it is an homage to the idea of anime.
I'm hoping we'll see a Pacific Rim 2-- surely the end of the film only destroyed one of the alien antagonists' portals/bases.
Being called a bitch wasn't really her biggest problem at that moment. Girl's got monsters to fight and a father figure to respect. Also probably not the first time she's been insulted in her life.
*SWORDED*
I said this on SF, but those 30 seconds or so were pretty much the Greatest Thing I've Ever Seen.
I mean, yes, if you stop and think about any of it the whole thing falls apart, but the movie's so good at keeping you on the fun train that you just give zero fucks about physics and logic at the time.
At the time we were recording, its box office numbers were pretty bad and it broke our hearts. The newest update is looking much better, but I fear not enough to to convince any movie studio to back original ideas over Unwanted Adam Sandler Sequel 4 or Unnecessary Animated Sequel 5.
Also, The Lone Ranger has tanked SO BADLY that I saw something this morning saying it would be "lucky" to pass $100M. Different studio, yeah, but things have been so dire this summer that they might not consider this a bad turnout. I do kind of wonder how much better it might have done if they'd been able to get a date much earlier in the summer. I'm noticing that the first movies out of the gate in May seem to have done better the last few years, before people have Mass Destruction Fatigue.
Plus it was just such a FUN popcorn flick. I like a lot of dark action films, but there needs to be a mix.
And yeah, I'm getting pretty tired of the whole cynical deconstruction thing. I mean, there's some middle ground between "brain dead" and "above it all." What hast thou wrought, Scream?