Pacific Rim 3D - 3 smiles

Although “Pacific Rim” is derivative (of other monster movies like Godzilla), it’s also an imaginative sci-fi epic with first-class special effects, crafty behemoths that calculate and react to circumstances in non-dumb ways, a smart director who injects a sense of fun and surprise whenever he can, characters you don’t mind watching and a few decent plot twists. However, about 75% of the movie takes place at night or deep under the ocean, where light is at a premium. 3D by its nature diminishes the amount of light that reaches the viewer’s eyes and this becomes an issue. There are many times when it’s difficult to see what’s happening in 3D. Also the comic relief featuring Charlie Day and Burn Gorman as rival scientists is distracting and played too over the top although their presence is integral to the narrative.

The movie opens with a prologue, explaining that the first Kaiju, an enormous amphibious dragon, rose from beneath the seas, Godzilla-style, to decimate San Francisco. Mankind’s answer to continued attacks has been to build 25-story-high Jaegers, fighting metal robots controlled by two pilots, whose minds are synced together, positioned inside them. The initial Kaiju/Jaeger showdown, along the Alaska coast during a nocturnal hurricane, has hotshot pilot Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam) and his older brother Yancy (Diego Klattehoff) fighting an aggressive Kaiju. They defeat the beast, but Yancy is killed. The movie picks up a few years later when the Jaeger program is being dropped in favor of building giant walls to protect seaside cities. Jaeger force commander Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) searches for a disillusioned Raleigh, who has dropped out of sight, to pilot one of his few remaining Jaegers in a plan to close the bridge in the ocean that’s allowing the Kaiju to enter our world. Under the sure hand of del Toro, all of the crash-bang action scenes move the narrative forward, rather than being space fillers. Everything is coherent. For someone who watched all of those cheesy black and white monster movies, “Pacific Rim” is a hoot! 7/14/13