Review of punch 'em up recommendation - Pacific Rim

Having punched so many walls in frustration during quarantine, I decided to base my next two reviews on movies which are all about things punching and fighting one another. For recommendation, I’m throwing in one of my favourite action movies of the 2010’s, an awesome tribute to Saturday morning cartoons and to the wild imagination of children.

I rarely say this, but I love this movie. I do not merely admire it on technical and filmmaking qualities. I cherish it like a friend, and it makes me internally smile whenever I think about it. It’s bold, brash, beautiful, brimming with bling and bucking brilliant.

My soul when I think of the movie.

Pacific Rim’s plot is really simple; giant aliens begin to invade Earth from a portal under the Ocean, humans build giant robots called Jaeger’s to fight these kaiju, and insanity ensues. There is no massive moral about humanity, no pretensions of glory, no glorified toy commercial. It’s just fury.

When I watch this film, it’s like stepping back to 6-year-old me and watching some ridiculous anime on Channel Nine at 7 in the morning. The film is over-the-top, gloriously colourful, silly without being unbearable, energetic in pacing and amazingly accessible. But most of all, it is compelling you to watch more, to go “ooh” excitedly, to want to see more of this craziness. It nails that feeling that makes people keep coming back to Dragonball and similar shows all these years later.

Big 3-D anime, at last.

Enough of the nostalgia, now to address the actual aspects of the film. In terms of technical filmmaking, it’s amazing. Guillermo del Toro is one of the best directors on the planet, period. I loved Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy and to a lesser extent The Shape of Water, and he’s especially great at conjuring a colourful and unique world. Rather than go for the grey’s and blacks typical of the cityscape in most movies, every frame in the movie goes for a bright, vibrant colour that’s always captivating without going the putrid over-corrected colour of a Michael Bay film. Some sets are practical, brimming with real colour rather than rubbery CGI glow, and those computer-generated scenes in the night streets of Tokyo shoot each scene with a real sense of majesty, like watching Lovecraftian beasts battle for the sake of their dark realm.

The use of light and colour in this movie is freaking awesome.

And the soundtrack…yesssss. Combining the composer of Game of Thrones with the lead singer of Audioslave and Rise Against the Machine? Why the fuck not?!!

And even though the writing in this movie is not trying to be intellectual, it nails that exact element of seeming dumb perfectly. There is no tepid romantic drama, no Max Payne self-seriousness, no needless subplots. It’s just a bunch of anime-exaggerated people going about their business defending the Earth from awesome-looking monsters. There are noble warriors from around the world with their own stereotypical-just-before-offensive personalities, there’s crazy scientists with their gadgets and paranoia, there are evil crime bosses in weird costumes offering alien goods. It’s essentially live-action anime, without the epilepsy or bizarre sexual perversions.

In short? This movie is incredible. Some people may not see it as such, some may only see it as dumb fun monster fodder, some may hate it and its sequel (which is actually terrible, I’ll write an FU review of that eventually). But I love it because it is simply entertainment made to replenish the soul.

Alright, which movies have you seen which had an incredible cho dan, or which ones fall over when they attempt an axe kick? Leave your answers in the comments.