Movie Premiere: Pacific Rim: Monster Mecha Movie with Heart

Rain or shine. Jaegers are coming! 

Feel free to proceed: SPOILER FREE Movie Review :) 

In the future, from  deep within the Pacific monsters christened as Kaijus (Japanese for Large Monster- in homage to Godzilla) emerge to wreck havoc, destroy cities and claim lives. 

The human race fights back by creating monsters to fight monsters. The Jaegers (German for Hunter) and after years of battling Kaijus, resources and time has just about run out --- 

The first time I saw the trailer for Pacific Rim a few months back, I dismissed it as being another Summer Block Buster wanting to cash in on the same graphic galore and effect studded Transformerish genre that was sure to spell "Summer Box Office Success". As the months to its release approached I was drawn to the movie and was really curious about it - curious enough that when Pizza Hut announced via Twitter that they would be giving away two tickets to the premiere of Pacific Rim I put out all the stops to win those tickets. 

After burning my fingers from tweeting non stop and because of my fish oriented tweet I did win the two coveted tickets to the premiere of Pacific Rim, which was held a little while back (July 9, 2013) at Greenbelt. 

The Premiere was made possible by Pizza Hut, Berocca, National Bookstore, 711 and with it's media partner RX93.1 and Warner Brothers Philippines. 

There was the customary games before the movie and still no luck with the prizes ~still didn't get that Palm Card. :(

On to the movie.... 

What makes Pacific Rim different from all the Transformer and Godzilla movies is that alongside all the metal and the monsters, the film also looks into human connections, the bonds between people. The bond of a brother to a brother, a father to a son and even the bond that courses through people who are not biologically related. 

Drifting. Because Two is better than One. 

In Pacific Rim, people just don't get into robots, pilot them and save the day. It is much more complicated than that. Director Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) wanted to explore the possibility of having two people pilot the Jaegers (the robots in the movie) but for these two people to be able to pilot the Jaegers they have to be able to share their mind and their thoughts with each other. In the movie, the concept is known as drifting. 

The movie reaches out to the young child in all of us that marveled at giant robots fighting evil monsters. It differs from a lot of big guns and big robot flicks because Pacific Rim puts a lot of heart into the equation of robots and monsters and this is exactly what director del Toro did. In a recent interview he said that he took the extra effort not to make Pacific Rim into another summer blockbuster. 

Wait. What? 

del Toro didn't want to have majority of the movie basically be all about 'blowing things up and things crashing into buildings' and indeed it was more than that, I for one never thought that I would cry in a mecha movie, but there I was tears rolling down my cheeks behind my prescription glasses which was behind the 3D glasses. 

Check out the Trailer below! :)

Another unorthodox summer movie ingredient that del Toro did not want in his recipe was the sexy girl in short shorts, tank tops running with her long hair swaying as bombs exploded behind her which was Transformers' director Micheal Bay's formula and which ultimately catapulted Megan Fox to her fame (but wasn't enough for her to keep her job, but that is another story). Even if del Toro did not want a sexy girl running around on screen, girls can still look forward to girl power in the form of Mako Mori. 

del Toro wanted a female lead who was 'an equal force to the male leads' and not just another pretty face to look at and Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) really delivered as the revengeful rookie with cool blue highlights. 

Blue Highlights and mean Jaeger Skills. Mako Mori. 

Another element in the movie worth mentioning was that del Toro took a lot of care, effort and time to make sure that the audience would be able to feel the weight of the Jaegers as they battle it out with the Kaijus. These are two very, very heavy entities going at each other and del Toro wanted to have that realistic feel to their weight. Which I can say really paid off - I could really feel all the weight, even when they were underwater. The speed of how they walked or swung their arms (or tails) really showed that there was much thought that went into the anatomy and kinetics of both the Jaegers and the Kaijus. They just didn't punch their arms at each other, there was a calculated slowness which contributed to it being both realistic and believable.

While the theatrical delivery of the lines (some of them anyway) were a bit cringe worthy, it was pretty much forgivable. I was also a tad bit disappointed with lead Charlie Hunnam who played the role of Raleigh Becket. He wasn't as a scarred hero as I was hoping him to be (tempted to insert something here but I won't to uphold my promise of No Spoilers) I felt his character lacked the proper development, aloofness and stubbornness given the situation that he was in. 

Right after the movie, I went to the comfort room as we most often do after a movie and heard the girl gossip going on (as girls often do) and the consensus was all the same. The girls did not expect the movie to be as it turned out - they were probably expecting monsters and giants fighting it out in an overwhelming amount of computer generated graphics and effects but they got something else, they got something more. The audience got a good mecha action film, with laughs, tears and a lot of tugging in the heart. 

Lined up for the premier with our tickets. 

Pacific Rim is showing in Cinemas on July 11 in 2D, 3D and in IMAX 3D and is distributed by Warner Brothers Philippines. It's a great movie to catch with your significant other (Guys trust me your girlfriends will love it! Take it from me), It's also a great film to see with your kids (it's PG13) so the preteens and teens would enjoy it. It's a great bonding film for dads and their kids to watch together and of course it's always fun to watch with friends. Heck! I want to watch it again! :) 

UPDATE!

I'm updating this post with exclusive Pacific Rim prints from Mondo! Which will be available for sale in this year's SDCC  and was featured exclusively on Entertainment Weekly.