20141005: Fantasy Review--Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, PG13, 132 minutes, action, adventure, fantasy.  Made in Canada.  English dialog for the most part.
2. IMDB: 7.1/10.0 from 282,527 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 190 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 72% on the meter; 77% liked it from 185,401 audience ratings.
4. I saw this film on HBO.
5. Directed by: Guillermo del Toro.
6. Starring: Idris Elba as Stacker Pentecost, Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket, Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori, Charlie Day as Dr Newton Geiszler, Burn Gorman as Gottlieb, Max Martini as Herc Hansen, Robert Kazinsky as Chuck Hansen, Ron Perlman as Hannibal Chau.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Irresponsible and poorly trained pilots fly incredibly stupid looking giant exoskeletons (Jaegers) into battle against powerful aliens (the Kaiju) from another dimension.


2. I have liked del Toro's films in the past, but this was terrible.  There was a lot of action, there was a lot of destruction, many people were killed, but this was still a bad movie.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: The worst episode of MMPR ever made.
2. Here MMPR is the acronym for "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers."
3. One of ten.  Two black holes for screenplay and SFX.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 Absurdly bad SFX.  No parts of the film looked good.


2. Sound: 2/10 So many odd choices, plus tons of irrelevant noise.


3. Acting: 3/10 Idris Elba, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman let us know that acting is still possible even in the face was such a poor story, worse writing, and laughable action.  The Gieszler/Gottlieb pair were unfunny, unconvincing, undeserving of trust, and bloody irritating.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Proof that modern films need neither a solid screenplay nor in-depth acting by all players to make lots of money.