TEETERING ON THE "RIM":
DEL TORO'S "PACIFIC" BALANCES ACTION AND HUMANITY
by Bennett Campbell Ferguson
Above: Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, and Charlie Hunnam battle to save humanity
If you are a regular
moviegoer, you’ve probably had a hard time forgetting the poster for the new
sci-fi blockbuster “Pacific Rim”—a massive robot, staking its fist on the ocean
shore. It’s a powerfully hulking image,
and yet strangely enough, it is not androids who make the movie into reasonably
reliable summer entertainment. No, it is
the warriors who pilot the ‘bots—Beckett (Charlie Hunnam), a disheveled,
easygoing fellow; Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), his immaculate and innocent partner in
battle; and Marshall (Idris Elba), their commanding officer. If none of these characters are as
wonderfully complex as Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne, they are still charming and
emotionally troubled enough that they effectively draw us into the movie’s
bombastic world, a world dominated by Kaiju.
But what are Kaiju?
According to the film, they Godzilla-like monsters who enter our world
from the ocean floor but are actually from an alternate dimension. They run rampant for years, launching
assaults on San Francisco, Sydney, and Hong Kong, forcing humanity to take up
arms by building the massive robotic suits (which are called, “Jaegers”) that
Beckett, Mako, and Marshall will ultimately pilot into a battle to save
Earth.
As I watched Beckett first suiting up to fight, I wasn’t
sure whether to go giddy or groan. I
loved the early shots of him stepping into that massive robot, I felt a surge
of excitement, especially since it was accompanied by a rock-synth score by
Ramin Djawadi (who did similarly smashing work on “Iron Man”). I also liked Beckett’s voiceover about how
even though he was a great Jaeger pilot, he’d never been a terrific
athlete. I couldn’t help smiling at the
thought that director Guillermo del Toro might be envisioning a futuristic nerd
paradise in which a gang of slender geeks and their robots nobly accept the
task of saving mankind.
Still, something bothered me. At the beginning, Beckett pilots his Jaeger
with the help of his brother. As they
prepare to take on the Kaiju, they exchange mild witticisms, enjoying each
other’s companionship, some much so that I immediately knew that one of them
was going to die. Because in action
movies, the brother or best friend is always expendable. He’s not the protagonist and he’s not a
beautiful woman, so his sole purpose is usually to expire and thereby inspire
the hero to take revenge. To say the
least, this narrative is a tired trope, one that has been worn out by
everything from “Speed” to “The Lone Ranger.”
Those films never really believed in the death of these characters; they
simply used tragedy as a device to move things forward. The same is true of “Pacific Rim” and this is
just one example of the film’s stumbling blocks, which include convoluted
action and a lack of character development.
In other words, “Pacific Rim” exists several artistic
notches below a fully-formed emotional saga like “The Dark Knight Rises.” And yet somehow, it never tumbles into the
realm of meaningless bombast occupied so agonizingly by recent films like “Man
of Steel.” The war with the Kaiju may be
a battle of brute force, but Mr. del Toro makes you care about the people
fighting it. The chaste, sweet
flirtation between Beckett and Mako (she nervously peeks into his room in a very
funny moment) gives us something to latch onto and care about, as does
Marshall’s stoic dignity, which conceals his deep compassion. So when it comes
time for a final Kaiju-Jaeger slug-out on the Pacific Ocean floor, the sonic
booming of the fight almost deafens and desensitizes you but it’s too late for
the film to fail—you’re already hooked on the human drama, even if it is
slight.
There are other reasons to see “Pacific Rim.” Mr. del Toro furnishes the film with supreme
visual style (especially in his colorfully rainy depiction of Hong Kong),
packing it with cartoonish touches that feel just right. In this world, jittery scientists wear bow
ties and square glasses while the wealthiest criminals can afford shades and noisy,
metal-plated shoes. But as delightful as
Mr. del Toro’s brand of charming goofiness is, it’s the way he mixes humanity
and action that keeps the movie on course.
This is especially true in the case of Mako, who wants revenge because
she watched her family slaughtered by Kaiju when she just a kid. Thus, it’s a powerful moment when high above
the planet she shouts, “For my family!” before unsheathing a robotic sword to
slay one of the vile beasts. It’s a
freakishly cool display of weaponry, but it’s her declaration of vengeance that
makes it powerful.
Her
words may not be profound but somehow, they’re enough.
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