You say that’s impossible. You remember Star Wars, Enter the Dragon, Superman, Fight Club and the Godfather movies to name a few? Those movies changed your life. Then believe in the impossibility that this movie will change the medium and in the process, your life. Back in January, I explained how Guillermo del Toro got to make this movie, got an inside scoop, and told the story. Check it out HERE for those of you that need to be reminded.
An artist is at work here and you need to witness it. This movie is not just about giant robots fighting giant monsters from another dimension. It’s an inspirational film by del Toro. This is the next big cult film. Like George Lucas’ original 1977 Star Wars, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim will receive lots of praise, but unlike Star Wars it will inevitably bomb on a catastrophic level that the likes of mainstream news media outlets will relish reporting on. Say hello to your favorite summer mega movie for 2013. Say hello to this summer’s Speed Racer, the next John Carter, and the next Scott Pilgrim. Like Picasso, we will miss its real value, and then long after its creators are gone, we will discover how priceless the work is. It’s not a perfect movie like many may claim it to be, far from it actually. There’s some minor problems in the script, but they do not stop you from enjoying this visual masterpiece.
“When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes – a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi) who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.”
This is a celebration, a sculpture in a different medium, paid for by different sets of beliefs and I love Guillermo del Toro for having the guts to walk up to those executives at Warner Bros. studios and propose that they allow him to do this movie. The film’s main selling point is it’s overscaled action sequence in a terrified future, when spindly and limbed, whale-sized beasts emerge from hell’s gate on the ocean floor and fight it out with immense robots. The robots are run by two-pilot teams whose movements are tai chi exercises taking place on the world’s largest elliptical machines. They work in pairs because they use their minds and bodies to guide the machines in the way that a puppeteer guides the puppet, and the technology is too complex for a single brain to handle. The film opened with a montage explaining the origin of the giant monsters that have come to devastate most of the world which quickly leads into a battle sequence that sets up the lead hero’s back story. It’s a ridiculously good time! My friends and I enjoy the hell out of this movie having seen it multiple times and I recommend it highly. Just for the fact that del Toro went to a major movie studio, in this case Warner Bros. Pictures, and said I’ve decided to make a war movie with giant monsters and robots, and they agreed, made this film worth a trip to the movie theater. Go and change your life and be part of a new movement. Go see Pacific Rim and believe in the impossible again.
Your beloved Raphy.