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Movie Thoughts: Pacific Rim
I worked out a while ago how to use the free movie passes I was given for a present before they expire at the end of this year, but when I seemed to miss my chance to go see the new Star Trek movie without having to add a surcharge for seeing it in 3D I just shrugged that off and before long had thought of a possibility or two. For the next movie already in mind, though, I was intent on getting to Pacific Rim. I suppose it was a matter of priorities.
To begin with, so far as special effects battles pitting monsters against giant robots go, this movie managed to transcend anything I can think of I've seen drawn. That, of course, can't be the only thing you go to a movie for, but the character stories did seem simply but effectively drawn. The one thing I could feel most uncertain about was whether the subplot of the comedy relief scientists gelled with the rest of the plot at the very end; they came up with the way to make the desperate plan work, but I wound up thinking it might be necessary to interpret things as establishing more uncertainty about whether the first intended plan would work.
While I of course approached the film from a "mecha" perspective, I could understand how it also builds on the classic monster movie. Monster movies, of course, can say "they have the brawn, but we have the brains," but often enough I begin to wonder about "good guy monsters" fighting the "bad guy monsters" for us, which may tie in with one of the reasons why I was interested not just in Transformers but also in Robotech a certain while ago, and just might mean I found this film more satisfying than Cloverfield so far as "modern monster movies" go. As with the Robotech novels, Battletech (to a certain extent), and the "Mecha Corps" novel I read not that long ago, Pacific Rim invokes "mental control" as necessary to drive a giant robot, but unlike the Robotech novels this isn't bolted on a story not so obsessed with the question, and it can have ramifications beyond just "explanation."
To begin with, so far as special effects battles pitting monsters against giant robots go, this movie managed to transcend anything I can think of I've seen drawn. That, of course, can't be the only thing you go to a movie for, but the character stories did seem simply but effectively drawn. The one thing I could feel most uncertain about was whether the subplot of the comedy relief scientists gelled with the rest of the plot at the very end; they came up with the way to make the desperate plan work, but I wound up thinking it might be necessary to interpret things as establishing more uncertainty about whether the first intended plan would work.
While I of course approached the film from a "mecha" perspective, I could understand how it also builds on the classic monster movie. Monster movies, of course, can say "they have the brawn, but we have the brains," but often enough I begin to wonder about "good guy monsters" fighting the "bad guy monsters" for us, which may tie in with one of the reasons why I was interested not just in Transformers but also in Robotech a certain while ago, and just might mean I found this film more satisfying than Cloverfield so far as "modern monster movies" go. As with the Robotech novels, Battletech (to a certain extent), and the "Mecha Corps" novel I read not that long ago, Pacific Rim invokes "mental control" as necessary to drive a giant robot, but unlike the Robotech novels this isn't bolted on a story not so obsessed with the question, and it can have ramifications beyond just "explanation."