Last year Guillermo Del Toro's "Pacific Rim" received the loudest reaction from the fan boys at San Diego Comic-Con after showcasing some of the film's insane special effects for the audiences. Now, the film is finally in theaters and it appears to be getting mostly positive reviews, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Like many summer blockbusters "Pacific Rim" is about a life and death struggle over planet Earth between underdog humans and, in this case, kaiju. Kaiju are enormous monsters that love to wreak havoc in major cities. Kaiju films were born in Japan and the most famous of all would be Godzilla. In order to battle the gigantic monsters man has to build jumbo sized robots to even the playing field.
Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan felt that the film was an ideal way for Del Toro to show off his impressive skills. Turan also says that while the film is definitely a genre film aimed at audiences who love science fiction that "a number of factors combine to make it a deeper movie experience."
Ty Burr from the Boston Globe says that while "Pacific Rim" doesn't reach the levels of art that del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" did that it wasn't trying to and shouldn't be held to that standard.
"Del Toro's a geek savant, in other words, and the irrepressible brio of his moviemaking is tempered by an awareness of the darker sides of human nature and the way daydreams can capsize without warning into nightmare," Burr said. "Its maker just wants to conquer the box office and the zeitgeist on his own terms. That he does so while simultaneously widening the scope of blockbuster moviemaking bodes both well and ill for the future. A lot of people will try to do what Guillermo del Toro does here. Very few will do it as well."
The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday described the film as a "big, lumbering, rock 'em, sock 'em, mash-up of metallic heft and hyperbole, a noisy, overproduced disaster flick that sucks its characters and the audience down a vortex of garish visual effects and risibly cartoonish action." Adding, "And you know what? It's not bad!"
Claudia Puig of USA Today did not enjoy the movie giving it only 1 ½ stars out of four. "Pacific gets points for a diverse cast, though no one is allowed to exercise much in the way of acting skills or human appeal. It's essentially all combat all the time, and it's hardly a mystery which side will win."
Justin Craig from Fox News calls "Pacific Rim" "a funny, imaginative film plagued with bad acting." Craig gives the film credit for not being a remake or a sequel like so many summer blockbusters are. While Puig seemed to hate all of the action in the film Craig was disappointed when the explosions stopped for a few minutes.
"'Pacific Rim' is never pretentious and is often funny, which makes it lofty and entertaining, despite some rancid performances," Craig said. "Except for Charlie Day, Ron Perlman and the sublime Idris Elba, the performances are often cringe-worthy. Under ordinary circumstances, bad acting can sink a film, but del Toro has presented such an extensive buffet of goodies that it's easy to look past the acting (it's not as if the characters require top-notch acting in the first place) and get lost in this brave new world."
On Rotten Tomatoes "Pacific Rim" is currently scoring a 72 percent rating from reviewers. Audiences give the film a more favorable rating of 88 percent.
