PACIFIC RIM (2013) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

pacific rim (2013) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   131 minutes

Released         |   12 July 2013

cast

Charlie Hunnam ... Raleigh Becket
Diego Klattenhoff ... Yancy Becket
Idris Elba ... Stacker Pentecost
Rinko Kikuchi ... Mako Mori
Charlie Day ... Dr. Newton Geiszler
Burn Gorman ... Gottlieb
Max Martini ... Herc Hansen
Robert Kazinsky ... Chuck Hansen (as Rob Kazinsky)
Clifton Collins Jr. ... Ops Tendo Choi
​Ron Perlman ... Hannibal Chau

director

Guillermo del Toro

writer

​Travis Beacham ... (screenplay) &
Guillermo del Toro ... (screenplay)
 
Travis Beacham ... (story)

cinematographer

​Guillermo Navarro ... director of photography

music

Ramin Djawadi

film editor

​Peter Amundson
John Gilroy

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​411,002,906

Australia                 $​​​​​​7,523,232

North America       $​​​​​101,802,906

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movie minutiae

​Travis Beacham, the screenwriter, got the idea for the movie while walking along the California coastline on a foggy morning. The shape of the pier looked like a creature rising from the water, and he imagined a large robot waiting on the shore to battle it.

In March 2013, YouTube channel "Dumb Drum" created a "sweded" version of PACIFIC RIM (2013)'s trailer. Less than two weeks later, Guillermo del Toro commented on the video at WonderCon 2013, calling it a "masterpiece" and saying that it inspired him to create the second trailer for the film. He also invited the filmmakers to the Hollywood premiere. When the film was released on home video, Legendary Pictures contacted "Dumb Drum" and asked for their help promoting the release. In October 2013, they released several "sweded" versions of scenes from the movie. These new videos were made fifteen-second intervals for sharing on social media websites.

Ron Perlman's character, Hannibal Chau, could be named after James Hong's character, Hannibal Chew, in BLADE RUNNER (1982), as Guillermo del Toro has named the film as a huge inspiration for him as a director.

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related movies

PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING (2018)

PACIFIC RIM (2013) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

PACIFIC RIM (2013) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Long ago, legions of monstrous creatures called Kaiju arose from the sea, bringing with them all-consuming war. To fight the Kaiju, mankind developed giant robots called Jaegers, designed to be piloted by two humans locked together in a neural bridge. However, even the Jaegers are not enough to defeat the Kaiju, and humanity is on the verge of defeat. Mankind's last hope now lies with a washed-up ex-pilot (Charlie Hunnam), an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi) and an old, obsolete Jaeger.

PACIFIC RIM (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 11 July 2013

​​Pop Movee Rating

​PACIFIC RIM is the passion project from Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican film Director whose work include genre films such as HELLBOY I & II and BLADE II.

PACIFIC RIM is an entertaining film, but the scale of the action is so grand that it is hard for the viewer to access the human drama of the story. This manifests itself throughout the film but is highlighted when, toward the film’s end, one of the story’s major characters meets their death, but there is no sense of loss and no sense of sacrifice. It is a problem that exists right the way through the film and a number of times, character dialogue emphasises the issue by pointing out that there is no time to mourn their losses as the fight goes on.

PACIFIC RIM opens with a long prelude sequence that establishes an inter-dimensional void was opened on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and through it came massive monsters that came to be referred to as Kaiju. The first Kaiju laid waste to a number of cities before it was eventually stopped, but it wasn’t long before more Kaiju came through the inter-dimensional gap between the tectonic plates deep on the ocean floor to wreak carnage on a mass scale. 

Earth’s response to these ongoing attacks was to band together as a planet and create its own massive instruments of destruction in the form of the Jaegers; human-piloted robots as large as skyscrapers capable of repelling the Kaiju. At first, the Jaeger program was successful in stemming the tide of destruction from the Kaiju attacks..

The Jaeger pilots even became celebrities in their own right and, it is at this point in the prelude, the audience is introduced to Raleigh Becket, played by Charlie Hunnam, and Yancy Becket, played by Diego Klatenhoff. The two brothers who have successfully beaten every Kaiju they’ve faced in their Jaeger – Gypsey Rose. Unfortunately, their latest face-off with a Kaiju doesn’t turn out so well and Yancy is killed by the monster as he is torn free from his machine’s cockpit.

As the Jaeger pilots are mentally connected to each other, Raleigh Becket feels everything his brother experiences at the moment of his death. It is too much for the young man and he abandons the Jaeger program to become a construction worker.

Five years later his old commander, Stacker Pentecost, played by Idris Elba, comes looking for Raleigh in an effort to round up as many Jaeger pilots as possible. Pentecost tells Raleigh that Jaegers are being lost faster than ever before and that Earth governments are looking for alternatives to hold the Kaiju at bay. Pentecost, however, plans to use the last four remaining Jaeger’s in an offensive against the Kaiju, launching an attack to close the inter-dimensional void that the Kaiju travel through to get to Earth. Raleigh agrees to return to the Jaeger program and his assigned to his old Jaeger – the Gypsey Rose. 

It is in this mid-point of the film that the audience either becomes totally engrossed by what is unfolding before them or extremely bored by the sheer amount of exposition the film’s Second Act requires to get to a jumping-off point for the climactic battle that everyone knows is going to happen at the end of the movie...

Del Toro and Travis Beacham, the film’s Co-screenwriter, do a reasonable job of moving the story along while providing enough story for each of the characters that the audience need to care about in the second half of Pacific Rim...

Rinko Kikuchi’s character of Mako Mori comes to the fore as forges a close relationship with Raleigh as his fellow Jaeger pilot aboard Gypsey Rose. There are the mandatory crawl-before-you-walk scenes where Raleigh and Mako come to terms with each other’s backstory, as well as a number of secondary story threads that see the Jaeger program’s two key scientists, played by Charlie Day & Burn Gorman, attempting to work out a solution for how best to defeat the Kaiju.
Charlie Day, in particular, gets a lot of screen time throughout the Second and Third Act as he tracks down Ron Perlman’s character of Hannibal Chau in an effort to secure a live piece of Kaiju brain to conduct an experiment.

Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky play a father & son Jaeger pilot team who, at first, don’t play well with others, but – ultimately – help Raleigh and Mako tackle the Kaiju head-on at the mouth of the inter-dimensional void.

PACIFIC RIM is a massively enjoyable romp and, unlike the similar TRANSFORMERS films, has been made with a lot of heart and energy. The film makes every effort to have some sort of humanity about it, but the subject matter makes it extremely difficult to bring it down to a personal level. Del Toro manages to get the film to that level at least once, with a great flashback sequence that involves Stacker Pentecost and Mako Mori. Overall though, the tone of the characters and their relationships is like watching a science fiction version of TOP GUN, where the machismo is high and the relationships feel superficial because everyone’s waiting for the word to scramble for battle!

The film has some top-notch talent behind the scenes starting with Guillermo Navarro’s cinematography. Navarro has worked with Del Toro on numerous occasions and has, once again, delivered a uniquely photographed movie for his director.

Peter Amundson and John Gilroy shared the editing duties and Del Toro was extremely wise to bring an editor like Amundson on to the project, as he cut his teeth as an effects editor on films like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982).

Carol Spier and Andrew Neskoromny handled the production design duties and, once again, Del Toro used a genre-specialist in Neskoromny; whose credits include STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, ALIEN: RESURRECTION & ALIENS VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM; to bring the script to life. 

There’s no doubting the enthusiasm on display in PACIFIC RIM. It’s not an intimate character study of people. It’s about big robots beating up big monsters. Accepting this premise and suspending all subsequent disbelief is critical to enjoying this movie. Sometimes it’s not easy; but the spectacle this unique, non-sequel science fiction story offers is worth investing in just to sit back and be entertained. Unlike MAN OF STEEL, there is some sense to the destruction that PACIFIC RIM indulges in and, most importantly, whenever the movie appears to be taking itself a little too seriously, Del Toro make sure the action is tempered with just a little bit of humanity and humour. 

PACIFIC RIM (2013) USEFUL LINKS

Pacific Rim (film) - Wikipedia
​Pacific Rim (2013) - IMDb
​Pacific Rim (2013) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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