PACIFIC RIM

Giant robots fight giant monsters!  This is about all you need to know about Pacific Rim, an action movie that is big on big effects, short on originality, and a waste of the directing talent of Guillermo del Toro.

In the near future, a dimensional rift in the, well, Pacific Rim sends out giant monsters that humanity names Kaiju.  After conventional weapons prove too costly, the nations of the world build Jaegers: giant robots, guided by two pilots connected by a neural interface called the Drift.  At first the Jaegers are extremely effective, but soon more powerful Kaiju emerge, Jaegers start getting destroyed, and the world abandons the Jaeger program for a series of giant walls that don't work at all.

Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) wants to keep the Jaeger program going, so he relocates his resources to Hong Kong with a mission: Destroy the dimensional rift.  He recruits Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam), a once-successful Jaeger pilot who got burned out when his co-pilot and brother was killed.  Mako Mori (Rino Kikuchi) is a protege of Pentecost's, and she wants to be a Jaeger pilot (not to mention love interest for Beckett).  Scientists Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) are in the program to learn the creature's goals and weaknesses -- and they're in the movie for comic relief.  And Ron Perlman is there as Hannibal Chau, a black-market dealer in Kaiju remains.

All the plotting -- which includes hidden agendas, romantic angles, last-minute complications, and pilot rivalries -- is secondary to seeing the last four Jaegers (all varied in design, and abilities) slug it out with a number of Kaiju (all varied in design and abilities).  While the battles are a little entertaining at first, Pacific Rim soon feels like a high-budget Godzilla movie.  The Kaiju behave inconsistently as the plot dictates, the battles are often confusing (not to mention reliant on suddenly-introduced weapons and slow motion), and the whole thing feels shamelessly designed to please audiences looking for simple pleasures.  Pacific Rim is the stereotypical summer blockbuster -- lots of effects, little else.

Overall grade: D+
Reviewed by James Lynch