Pacific Rim Review

By Aaron Argot

​If a film about giant robots fighting giant monsters for the sake of humanity seems like your kind of movie, then look no further than  Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, 2013). This film has everything you could want from a summer blockbuster. It has stunning visuals, from the CGI to the practical effects. It’s got an entertaining and simple story, a superb score by Ramin Djawadi, and great acting. Most of all, it’s a fun movie, which is arguably one of the most important things about a film. With Pacific Rim: The Black coming out this month, this film is a great place to start understanding the story.

This review contains spoilers for Pacific Rim, reader discretion advised.

The plot is quite simple but really enjoyable, giant monstrous aliens, dubbed Kaiju, have begun to invade Earth from a breach at the bottom of the Pacific ocean, and go to attack coastal cities of said ocean. The humans build giant robots, dubbed Jaegers, to fight the Kaiju. The Jaegers are carefully piloted by two people due to their size, and the pilots have to go through a mind-melding process called “The Drift”. In the film, they say it is based on DARPA jet fighter neural systems, and that the better the bond that you have with someone, the better you will fight. These giant mechs and their pilots represent the resilience of humanity and how we need to work together to get through hardship. Both of those things are explored in the film.
The film starts with immersing the audience into the world at threat by the Kaiju, and how humans are fighting back. In doing so, it introduces the main character, Raleigh Becket. Pacific Rim follows Raleigh as he loses his brother in a fight with a Kaiju, leaves the Jaeger program, and is asked to return for a final effort against the Kaiju, in a war that humanity is losing. The film also follows Mako Mori, a second protagonist, who lost her family to a Kaiju attack and is working toward becoming a pilot herself. Most of the movie is humanities final pushes toward victory against the Kaiju.

This is not one of Guillermo del Toro’s most critically acclaimed films. Although, he has said that (at least at the time) it was the only one he directed where he was excited to go into work everyday, and it definitely shows. The visuals are incredible and have so much detail, the CGI in particular. All the visuals have held up even after almost ten years. The Kaiju look very biological, and the Jaegers have lots of moving parts, things that you would see if a robot that huge actually did exist. Del Toro’s directing only adds to the realism and immersion by making each step and each blow dealt by either party have real weight. It becomes more clear when you compare it to Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), a film Del Toro did not direct, where the movements fail to capture the full spectacle of the Jaegers and Kaiju. The Kaiju in this movie are also frightening, much like how the dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park franchise. There are also a surprisingly large amount of practical effects in the film. All of the suits the Jaeger pilots wear, as well as the large cockpit area, were all built for the movie. So most of the spinning and moving parts in the cockpit and on their suits are real and not special effects. The cockpit even moves and jerks around when filming fight scenes. All of the intense jerking around in certain scenes makes it so that the actors have more realistic reactions, as it would be much harder to get into that sort of role without it. 
What really adds to the emotion of the film is the amazing soundtrack. Ramin Djawadi makes the Kaiju seem daunting and monstrous, and hypes up the fights to the max level. Whenever a kaiju destroys a jaeger or is about to destroy a city, you feel as though you are a citizen of the city and your life may be at risk. Whenever a jaeger stares down a kaiju and engages in battle with it, your heart is pumping and you're excited for what’s about to happen. This is largely in part to the work that Ramin Djawadi did in creating the score for this film.

Pacific Rim is a monster movie that still has a strong human element to it. Oftentimes, films like this are criticized for not having a good story about the human condition because it is focused on the monsters/robots most of the time. This is primarily a monster and robot movie, but there are a lot of fleshed out characters. That is mainly in part to the fact that there is a huge section of the film in the middle where there are no Jaeger and Kaiju fights, and it introduces and explores the main characters. That was a great choice, because other films like this will go back and forth pretty steadily between monster, human, monster, human, which usually ends up being fine for the monsters, but leaves the audience wanting more of the human element. The whole idea of connecting neurally is one of the things that really adds to the characters. How losing someone you were figuratively and literally connected to affects someone, and what kind of relationships can form through always being in someone else’s head while piloting a Jaeger.
Pacific Rim is del Toro’s love letter to the anime and the kaiju and mecha movies of his childhood. He put a lot of heart into it, and I appreciate every second of time devoted to this film.  I have often considered this a perfect movie, since it has a bit of everything, does everything right. This film has elements of noir, the main robot is modeled to resemble a John Wayne type cowboy, and it is said to have the flow of a sports movie. This film has everything, there are elements of so many kinds of movies that there is something for everyone. There’s a good story that is simple enough yet has a deep lore to look through if you so choose. The characters in the story are fleshed out and likable enough to not be overshadowed by the spectacular beasts and mechs. The visuals, including CGI and practical effects, are beautiful to look at and a testament to the kind of detail that went into it. The soundscape helps even more with the immersion in the film and helps get you into it emotionally. Pacific Rim is also great at one of the most important things when it comes to films, and that is for it to be a fun movie to watch and experience. ​

Works Cited:
Del Toro, Guillermo. Audio commentary. Pacific Rim. Dir. del Toro. Warner Bros. Pictures,
2013. DVD