Pacific Rim (2013) (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Oh forgot to post my thoughts on this film. I watched it yesterday at an IMAX theater in 3D. I thought the film was one of the best of that genre. I really liked it and was thoroughly entertained by it. I did noticed that my audience was less than 1/4 of capacity which was surprising to me so I'm not shocked by the box office numbers as anticipation for the film was definitely not what other summer films have enjoyed up this point. I hope the word gets out and crowds increase over time. The one knock I have on the film that has been noted already here is the fight scenes particularly early in the movie were filmed a little too close. Other than that I don't have any other complaints. I thought the acting was pretty good too and thought the film conveyed the personal emotions of the film characters very well. I think Rinko Kikuchi is hot! I thought her acting was fine in this film. I do agree the girl playing little Mako was excellent.

 

[Quentin]

This is my favorite movie of the summer. Hands down. So big, so well conceived and imagined, so full of details that immersed me into the world, surprisingly emotional, and well paced.

The Jaegers are kick-ass, the Kaiju are a bit generic but very cool and scary, the world feels like a fully realized world. It's the first genre movie I've wanted to own toys or a statue or something from since Star Wars (the originals).

As many character moments as there are, I really think we could have used a bit more. I wanted to know more about Raleigh and Mako. I wanted more time with them. Mostly so I could like them more. But, I liked them enough for the movie to work. I REALLY liked Pentecost and he is the force behind the film. Idris Elba is the bomb here. And, yes, Rinko Kikuchi is VERY pretty.

I really liked the fight scenes a TON. I had no problem at all with the camera work - close when needed, pulled away when needed. Pull away too far and you would lose the sense of HUGENESS this film conveys. What I really wanted was MORE, MORE, MORE!! I could have easily sat through one or two more set pieces to really enjoy the uniqueness of the mechs. It goes by way too fast.

The supporting characters are interesting and funny, but their sub-plot is paper thin at best.

A- and a ton of fun. Now where do I find my scale Gipsy Danger model?...

 

[Sean Bryan]

Bleh none of the stores had the toys, had to overpay to get em from Amazon, what the hell is going on? Few theaters, no toys, it's like they are surprised people like it!

Sam, I get my toys here:http://www.sideshowtoy.com/?page_id=4489&sku=400215Looks like only one kanji at the moment.Cool movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

 

[Jim_C]

Just got back from a 3D viewing. Absolutely loved it. My only complaint is that I wish the fight scenes weren't always so close. Anyway, I'll be taking my son to see it again next weekend.

The theater was 1/3 filled on a Saturday night of opening weekend. Pretty disappointing to see good original movies not getting more interest.

 

[Sam Posten]

Thanks for the link but I thnk $20 is more my line than $400 =) Those arent toys, they are collectable statues. If I can't play with it on my desk it's not for me hehe

 

[Quentin]

Thanks for the link but I thnk $20 is more my line than $400 =) Those arent toys, they are collectable statues. If I can't play with it on my desk it's not for me hehe

The NECA series toys are all over ebay, Sam. 7" tall, around $20 each. Only Gipsy Danger, Crimson Typhoon, and Knife Head have been released so far.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yeah I bought all 3 via amazon prime rather than risking saving a few bucks on ebay.

 

[schan1269]

"And, yes, Rinko Kikuchi is VERY pretty."

I've seen bits/pieces of 47 Ronin. If it ever does see the light of day, Rinko an Kou are...just wow.

 

[Tino]

Weekend boxoffice update from boxofficeguru.com:

Opening in third place was the sci-fi actioner Pacific Rim with an estimated $38.3M from 3,275 theaters for a good $11,695 average. That was about even with the $37.1M bow of April's futuristic thriller Oblivion with Tom Cruise. Both were sci-fi action pics not based on known brands which also had 3D and IMAX contributing. Oblivion was star-driven but Pacific had a prime summer slot. District 9 from the summer of 2009 opened to a similar $37.4M.Ordinarily this would be a very strong opening for an original action film with no major box office stars. However, Pacific Rim carried an enormous budget, reportedly in the $200M range, so it will take a long road to reach break-even. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Rim tells the story of a time in the near future when humans build humungous robots to do battle with alien monsters on a mission to exterminate Earth's inhabitants.Reviews were very positive and the CinemaScore grade was an encouraging A- which was the same as for other summer action flicks like Man of Steel, White House Down, and The Heat. This might indicate a good road ahead, although fanboy pics typically draw their main audience upfront. Studio research showed that males made up 61% of the crowd while 53% were over 25. The special effects were a big draw as 19% of the gross came from IMAX screens and 50% overall came from the 3D format. That share represented the highest of any film in that format this summer.About half of the international marketplace opened Pacific Rim this weekend with $53M collected from 38 markets for a global debut of $91.3M. Most, but not all, markets were impressive led by $9.6M in Korea and $9.3M in Russia. More key markets are to come including France and Germany next weekend and China, which could be a huge one for an IMAX film like this, on July 31.

 

[TravisR]

Man, that's depressing. Once again, Hollywood is right to keep working with existing properties because it's the only thing that the public will go and see.

 

[Bill Coolidge]

Saw it today at a local theater in 2d. It started off pretty good. I loved the first shots of Gypsy Danger coming out of the hanger. I had fun with the sense of scale. And I loved the idea of connecting with the monster brain and finding out more about who sent them. But that plot idea didn't seem to go anywhere except to show how they could blow up the rift. I wanted more communication with the aliens or at least find out more about their universe and culture. Somewhere towards the end it just turned into a bunch of really long really boring fight scenes. Like a video game or something. And all the monsters seemed to look the same. Or at least the shots weren't wide enough to differentiate them. Ron Pearlman was pretty fun though.

 

[DaveF]

This is the movie Roland Emmerich's Godzilla and Michael Bay's The Transformers wanted to be. Rolled into one. The giant robots were GIANT! They had such terrible mass when they moved. I've been waiting for this movie my entire life.The dialog was terrible. Someone would push the Big Red Button, and then have a moment of explicit dialog stating 'I've pushed the Big Red Button of Doom". Given Del Toro's Hellboy and Pans Labyrinth, I keep thinking this movie was written this way on purpose. It has a "14 yr old boy" feel to it (I mean, the super genius theoretician explained how, after five years of watching the lizards, just figured out how fit the data to a power curve...that is, doing college math)But that "14 yr old boy" meant the movie kept going. There was no dawdling in the beginning. It set things in motion, and got going. Every 20 minutes, there was a little twist and something new came on screen. Characters weren't subtle, but the emotions drawn in broad strokes were earnest and mostly enjoyable.It wasn't everything I hoped for -- for a brief moment, I thought this might be the new RoboCop, that sublime movie that transcends itself with the right bit of pathos in both writing and performance. And for all its sci-fi nuttiness, it made sense enough and didn't collapse under its own weight. But boy was it fun. I was literally slack jawed at times. It had moments of incredible surprise. The Jaegers and Kaizu were the stars. And their performances left me hyped all night.

 

[DaveF]

More succinctly:

 

[Malcolm R]

I was unclear about a couple of things:

[*]Hannibal was upset after hearing about the human-kaiju drift, stating it was a two-way connection whereby the aliens would have gained information about the humans' tactics. But there had to be some kind of monitoring going on already, as they said the kaiju kept evolving to better fight the Jaegers until they were on the verge of defeating them. The invaders must have already known what was happening on Earth in order to modify and improve the monsters they sent through the portal.
[/list]
[*]There was a big deal made about the humans' inability to penetrate or destroy the portal without having some sort of kaiju DNA to permit passage. Otherwise the portal would remain sealed. However, the escape pods seemed to have no problem moving through the portal on their own, without any kaiju "parts" to use as camoflage and trick the portal into opening.
[/list]

 

[Greg.K]

It's no Sharknado, that's for sure.

My wife asked me how it was, my reply was "It was no Sharknado." Saw today on our local Regal RPX screen in 2D. The big screen and big sound was definitely the way to go for this movie. Talk about a a subwoofer workout.The dialogue and acting were servicible, though not great. I agree that the little girl gave the best acting performance in the movie. I did have to roll my eyes at a few bits, like the idea that the kaiju were here before in the form of dinosaurs, but didn't find earth hospitable enough. Umm... Dinosaurs were around for more than 150 million years, I think they found it to their liking. And I did have to wonder why they didn't just fire a nuke at every monster that came out of the rift. Seems that would have worked great until the category 5 sharkna.. err monster.However, the action scenes, and the jaegers & kaiju,, kicked ass. Well worth the price to see on the big big screen.

 

[Brian Dobbs]

Can't wait to get this on Blu-Ray.

I went for the action and I got the action.

Dialogue was terrible. "Don't get cocky?" Are you serious!?

I bought into the world, although the physics were a really loose.

NIT PICK - I also had a hard time actually hearing what most of the characters were saying. I don't mind accents, but it's hard when a lot of characters have accents. I totally saw through Hunnam's 'American' accent.

8/10

 

[TravisR]

Dialogue was terrible. "Don't get cocky?" Are you serious!?

That was a nod to Star Wars.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yeah man:

Travis Beacham ‏@travisbeacham 13 Jul
Literally the only reason I'm following the numbers is that the sequel is bonkers and I want it to happen.

And:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2013/07/12/why-its-not-pacific-rim-versus-grown-ups-2/

Unrelated, this is FAN tas tic!
http://travisbeacham.tumblr.com/post/55487271091/quillery-here-is-the-fanart-i-promised-its

And:

The Little Girl was indeed awesome, more on her:
http://yinx1.tumblr.com/post/55443322799/this-actor-right-here-is-why-you-should-go-see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana_Ashida

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3870544/

 

[Sam Posten]

Loved this:

Wired: Were you familiar with the kaiju/mecha genres before you signed on to do Pacific Rim?
Djawadi: Before I flew up [to Toronto], they sent me the script so I was able to read it before I arrived. I actually made [del Toro] laugh: without even having talked to him, I read the script and realized the sheer size of this project – you know, like in Jaws, when they see the shark for the first time and say, “I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat”? I read the script and said to him, “I think we’re gonna need a bigger orchestra.” How are we going to keep up with these huge robots and monsters with a regular-sized one?
Wired: How big did your orchestra actually end up being?
Djawadi: It was over 100 players, and we had a big Russian choir, lots of extra percussion. We just beefed up everything. In each [instrumental] section alone, we had more players than the average-sized orchestra. We needed that big sound. I wanted to be really big, to go all out for this, so we kept it big from the beginning.
Wired: After your work on films like Iron Man and shows like Game of Thrones, you obviously must be pretty used to these huge productions by now. Do you have a game plan from the beginning? What was your goal with this particular score?
Djawadi: We started out with broad-stroke discussions. Guillermo had a great vision of what he wanted for the film straight from the beginning. He wanted it to be a nice adventure film; he said, “I definitely want to be able to hum my theme.” He knew he wanted guitars. He always referred to his Jaeger pilots as not really military people, but more like modern cowboys, more rock-n-roll, so he wanted their theme to be twangy, with more guitars. For the kaiju, he wanted to stay more on the traditional side, to pay homage to the Godzilla-type theme, so we used big trombone sections. So based on those conversations, I sat down and started writing theme ideas. Before we even put music to picture, I played him these, and then we started plugging them into the film to see what would work.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/07/pacific-rim-score-ramin-djawadi/

 

[Sam Posten]

And:

And while it certainly pays loving homage to everything from Godzilla to Neon Genesis Evangelion, it’s not like anything you’ve seen before.
Just ask Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, whose recent eight-tweet love-letter to the film declared, “I have never imagined that I would be fortunate enough to see a film like this in my life. The emotional rush I had inside me was the same kind I had when I felt the outer space via 2001: A Space Odyssey and and when I had touched the dinosaur in Jurassic Park. Animation and special effects movies and shows that I loved in my childhood days they all truly exist in the screen… This film is not simply a film to be respected, but most importantly, it let us dream the future of entertainment movies. Pacific Rim is the ultimate otaku film that all of us had always been waiting for. Who are you, if you are Japanese and won’t watch this?”
Who are you, indeed.
Since I happen to be a critic, it’s also worth noting that it isn’t a perfect film. There few flaws here and there, notably that it doesn’t let characterization get in the way of its retina-blasting mecha-on-kaiju action, but in the larger summer movie blockbuster scheme of things, that simply does not matter. This easily the most fun flick to hit the theaters so far this summer, a fist-pumping, awe-inspiring ride for anyone who loves monster movies, robots, or just wants to get their face rocked for two hours.
It’s also a total surprise. Not because no one saw it coming, but because it’s all coming from the minds of writer Travis Beacham and Guillermo del Toro, the only two guys as nerdy about big fun action movies as the fans who will be lining up to pay 15 bucks for Pacific Rim at the box office.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/07/pacific-rim-surprising-review/

But this fan protectiveness–this desire for the movie’s success–has also inspired very defensive reactions. As of time of writing, tweets announcing that “If you’re not excited to see Pacific Rim, then we can’t be friends” are all over Twitter from multiple people; all tongue in cheek, of course, but there’s a weird peer pressure involved in their popularity nonetheless (Related: the sudden spate of celebrity endorsements).

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/07/pacific-rim-box-office-success/