Pacific Rim (2013)

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

I know I've spoken at great, most likely annoying lengths throughout the course of this blog about my dislike of Michael Bay. I could probably start a glue factory what with all the horse corpses I have laying around to pummel as a result of it. I give him credit where credit is due, as my shockingly glowing review of "Pain & Gain" proves, but that is the rare exception to the norm. Overwhelmingly Bay is a hack to rival anyone rated among the most notorious, and his money-factory juggernaut films represent nearly everything that is evil and wrong with the lowest-common-denominator-seeking industry that we find ourselves saddled with.

And Guillermo del Toro just gave him the biggest, most thunderous and glorious pimp-slap that has ever been recorded in human history.

Michael Bay needs to be strapped into a chair a la "A Clockwork Orange" and forced to watch "Pacific Rim" 47,000 times in a row. In between each repeat of the film, for 10 minutes the screen will flash the words "THIS IS HOW YOU DO GIANT ROBOTS FIGHTING, YOU ASS!!!" After he's done those words will be tattooed on the inside of his eyelids in florescent paint so he will forever see it when he closes his eyes in a constant reminder of how much his "Transformers" series sucks in comparison, and how to make the inevitable sequels better.

Lots of this is a good start. Honestly it's not that complicated.

What Guillermo del Toro has managed to accomplish with "Pacific Rim" is creating one of the most entertaining, thoroughly rousing and consistently surprising action films I've seen since...I can't even recall off the top of my head. Nothing has really ever come close with the obvious exception of some of the Millennial "Godzilla" films, and even they didn't have moves like "Pacific Rim" has.

"Pacific Rim" is a musclebound madman who throws you in his truck, starts flying down the highway at 193 mph and then, while still driving, sticks your head out the door and grinds your face off with the pavement like the world's most insane belt-sander until all that's left is a gleaming skull, but you're still alive but can only communicate by growling Opeth lyrics. Then he takes you to a garage where they chrome your head, strap you to the nose of a spaceship like you're a hood ornament and launches you into the sun while a crew of vikings do battle with space-axes on the outer hull of the ship. That's how hardcore "Pacific Rim" is: It should have space vikings.

Hell yes.

Like all of del Toro's works, "Pacific Rim" is a love letter to the genre it occupies. In this case the genre is in line with the Japanese "Kaiju" monster movies, of which the likes of "Godzilla" and "Gamera" and whatnot are the most famous. It's a bit of a niche genre, for sure, but few can argue as to the inherent awesome factor of seeing giant monsters beating the crap out of each other.
 
What "Pacific Rim" does is to take those movies, which were infamous for guys in rubber suits and corny special effects and give them a high-tech, flashy, steroided up shot in the arm that looks stunningly gorgeous and is essentially a dream come true for anybody who is a fan of the genre. But I have a hard time imagining someone not having a great time at "Pacific Rim," even if they don't know Barugon from an unusually large honey badger.

But if you catch that this shot is a direct reference to another film, "Pacific Rim" is for you.

The story flies by quick and dirty in the opening scene as we are told how giant monsters came to be here. Basically, a dimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific ocean opened up, giant monsters we call Kaiju came through and started leveling cities, we built giant robots called Jaegers to fight them, the fight isn't going so great, and beyond that don't worry about it. That's all you need to know.
 
Blissfully "Pacific Rim" doesn't try to make the story more complex than it needs to be. And while some snobs may call "simplistic" on that setup, it makes perfect sense since the whole point is that nobody knows what the Kaiju are, where they actually come from or why they're attacking us. The reveal of that mystery is one of the driving elements of the plot. So call it "simple" if you want, but it's only that way because you only know as much as the characters do. Makes sense to me.

Um, excuse me? I expect deep characterization in my movie about giant monsters trampling Tokyo. Boo. Zero stars.

Our protagonist is Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam), a Jaeger pilot who experienced a horrific loss years earlier during a nasty Kaiju attack, and has since retired from the fighting. Now, as the Jaeger program has essentially been scrapped and the world is curling up on itself in defeat like you've just lost a game of "X-Com," Raleigh finds himself drawn back into the fight by Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), his old commander. He and what's left of the Jaeger program gear up for one last effort to close the portal and stop the Kaiju permanently.

Raleigh is a typical action hero who would rather not be doing this and plays by his own rules, but Hunnam plays him well enough so as to make him a believable and likeable character. It's true that his character may be a bit of a trope, but what do you want from a hero in a giant robot movie? A wuss who meekly follows orders but complains the whole time? Guess what? That would give you Shinji from "Neon Genesis Evangelion." And screw that.

Yeah, dissenters of "Pacific Rim." You're right. It's not the same unless Raleigh is crying to himself and whacking off over her while she's in a coma. Because that's what I signed on for.

The one who really got my attention though was Rinko Kikuchi as Mako, Raleigh's eventual co-pilot whose only goal in life is to drive a Jaeger. Rinko is an absolutely dynamite actresses, and she played vulnerable and tough-as-nails at the same time better than anyone I've seen in a really, really long time. The child version of Mako we see in a flashback, played by young actress Mana Ashida in a performance which was so realistically heartrending that it was pretty tough to watch, only strengthened her character and made me like her even more. She might be one of my new favorite female sci-fi characters.

Did I mention she's also really, really hot? I should mention that at some point.

The whole cast is solid all around, with Idris Elba being the face of seriousness to ground us in the drama, and Clifton Collins Jr. as one of the Jaeger techs and Charlie Day and Burn Gorman as the two head-butting scientists lending some non-distracting and actually humorous comic relief. Normally I'm against comic relief as I feel it's usually unnecessary, but since these guys are actually funny without trying too hard, it works just fine. And I say that while not being a fan of Charlie Day, so that's pretty high praise coming from me. (I know, I know. Charlie Day is the greatest thing ever. I know. I've been told. I just can't stand listening to him. His voice is like an aural root canal.)

There are some characters who aren't that spectacular, not because they did a bad job or are poorly written, but the movie doesn't get quite enough time spent with them. Foremost amongst those is Chuck Hansen (Robert Kazinsky), one of the Australian Jaeger pilots who immediately butts heads with Raleigh and seemed like he was an interesting character, but because there's simply too much else going on, we're left with him simply being an "Iceman from Top Gun" type figure who's kind of a big jerk who is somewhat justified in his jerkiness. That's about it. I feel like there must have been a scene left on the cutting room floor that would have wrapped his character up a bit better.

But Chuck wasn't the worst. An issue I have in movies like this is when we're shown this collection of soldiers or awesome characters and whatnot, and before they really have a chance to do much, nearly all of them are wiped out nearly instantly once the fighting starts. I'm reminded of "Aliens," actually. Despite that being one of my favorite movies, the marines in that movie get like 70% annihilated roughly 2 minutes into their first fight. Those were awesome characters but they get slaughtered before they can do much of anything. Without getting too into spoilers, "Pacific Rim" is guilty of this, too. And yeah it kind of bugged me.

Then again...any movie that has Ron Perlman looking like a steampunk pimp out of an anime is automatically amazing.

What is amazing to me is that the action in "Pacific Rim" is compreshensible and gorgeous to look at while using barely if any slow-motion and taking place almost exclusively in the dark, often in the ocean and sometimes in the rain. It's so well framed and edited that there wasn't a single point in any of the fights that I didn't have a clear idea of what was going on, and that's including the moments when tentacles and smoke and debris and water are flying all over the place. It's a stunning example of how "Pacific Rim" got it right whereas "Transformers," even with it's slow-motion-in-broad-daylight handicap failed miserably. Guess that's what happens when you get a good director.

By the way, don't bother seeing "Pacific Rim" in 3D. I've seen it both ways, and the normal 2D version is (unsurprisingly) better. It's not that the 3D was bad, but it tended to make the action more difficult to make out, detracting from the normally fantastic action. The glasses making an already dark movie more so didn't help matters, either.

This NEEDS to become a franchise. Del Toro has mentioned that he has ideas if sequels were to be green-lit. I would pre-order my tickets today if that we the case. I don't care. Hell, I'll take three. Whatever it takes to make more of these. Del Toro, you crafty bastard. You've done it again. Make sure to swing by Michael Bay's house to deliver that flying elbow drop off the top turnbuckle that you owe him.

(Dramatic Reenactment)

Check out the trailer for "Pacific Rim!" And yes, that is the same woman who did GLaDOS as the voice of the Jaeger. Nerds, you're welcome.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Pacific Rim" is a perpetual buffet line of awesomeness. It will chisel a smile into the faces of anyone watching who possesses a pulse and a desire to have a good time. Apart from that, it's an expertly crafted action film which looks gorgeous, is exciting, and is a love letter to those monster movies that awaken the gleeful 10-year-old lurking somewhere in all but the most jaded of us. Probably the most fun I've had at the theater this year to date. It's an amazing movie, and Top 10 of 2013 nearly guaranteed.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)

Oh Nicolas Cage. You put me in such a good mood. Every time I see a movie with your ridiculous toupee of the moment, a little flutter in my soul lifts up to spread a smile on my face. With only a moment's hesitation, I reach out to pick up the case, imagining with glee the wonders that await me in this next magical adventure with the world's foremost authority on "uber-acting." The spasms of his face, the high-pitched, off-kilter delivery of his lines, the sudden explosions of yelling incoherently, his oddly maniac giggle...entertainment awaits us.

I was one of the few people who didn't hate the first "Ghost Rider." It wasn't a fantastic film, but I found it reasonably entertaining. And despite whether or not Nicolas Cage was necessarily right for the role of Johnny Blaze, I found his performance genuine and, let's face it, even-keeled as far as his performances usually get. For anyone rolling their eyes at that statement, just think back to "Face/Off."

Yeah. Now remember that in "Ghost Rider," Nicolas Cage is playing a man whose skull is on fire half the movie. And Caster Troy was the more over-the-top performance. Don't tell me the man only has one setting! He's got at least 4!

He's either acting or attempting to implode a man's skull using only the power of his mind.

For that reason, I was actually looking forward to "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance." In particular I dug the artistic design and vision they were going with, which seemed more realistic and less cartoony than the first one. What I was unaware of was the fact that this film was directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the same team who did "Crank." And while that may have been an odd choice, had I known that before, I would have made more effort to see it in theaters, which I didn't get an opportunity to do.

Man, is it obvious that this was by Neveldine/Taylor. "Ghost Rider: SoV" contains much of the same kind of frenetic, super charged action that could be found in "Crank," although to a much less, PG-13 level extent. And while a hard-R version of this movie would have been awesome, let's face it, Marvel don't roll that way what with tickets sales and all, even though I'm pretty sure the hit to their pockets would be minimal. It's not like anyone saw this movie to begin with.

Also very present is the same style of fourth-wall obliterating humor that was so prevalent in the "Crank" series. There are several "wink at the camera" moments that, to be honest, are pretty jarring. For example, for those who saw the trailer, the much-maligned exchange of dialogue: "What if you have to pee when you're on fire?" followed by Nicolas Cage's response of "It's awesome. It's like a flamethrower" is actually in the film, complete with a cutaway to the Rider standing in some kind of void where he is floating in blackness, back to the audience as a jet of flame shoots from his groin. He then turns his head and nods in an "Oh yeah" moment. Then *BANG* back to the movie. They also do the exact same extreme close ups as the main character flies down the road on a motorcycle in a state of near maniac rage/rapture that "Crank" did. I guess that will be in every Neveldine/Taylor movie.

 Seth McFarlane wishes he could write a cutaway this awesome.

What it all boils down to really is a matter of personal taste of whether or not it will work for you. Me personally? It didn't really bother me. It seemed to fit the tone of the film, which was essentially a big(ger) budget B-movie. And that's fine. I dig that stuff, especially when Mr. Cage is involved. But I can imagine that if you'd never seen "Crank," or weren't familiar with the kind of movie Neveldine/Taylor make, these kind of scenes might seem horribly distracting. Just know that "Crank" got way, WAY sillier than this one.

The story concerns Johnny Blaze hiding in Europe because he doesn't want to be working as the Devil's errand boy. Now, right from the beginning I found it difficult to discern whether or not this movie was a sequel or a retcon. It seems that events from the first film still...could have happened? They aren't ever mentioned, but I suppose they are possible. The real confusing part is right in the introductory storybook-style flashback of how Johnny Blaze made his deal with the Devil. The story is still the same, but the scene where he signs the contract is presented in a totally different way, with no real reason I can see to change it. That along with no mention of anything from the first film makes me think that "Ghost Rider: SoV" is meant to be its own thing, and the first one might as well have never happened.

 This will make people who hated the first "Ghost Rider" happy, but the real question is "Does the second movie do a better job?" I would have to say "yes" for two reasons. The first concerns art design, and the second concerns how Nicolas Cage portrayed the Rider.

The first "Ghost Rider" had a Rider whose skull was a clean white, with a shiny leather jacket and elaborately boned-themed bike. It worked okay, but when Neveldine/Taylor's version of the Rider is on screen, it's clear that there is a much better way to portray Hell's Collection Boy.

Like this.

In "Ghost Rider: SoV," the Rider's skull is charred black, which gives it an air of desiccation and wear. His bike is a cobbled together husk of blackened pipes and gears, much more utilitarian than flashy, and it looks like it's driven a million miles instead of right off the showroom floor. And finally, in a touch I thought was borderline brilliant, when the Rider is out, and flames are licking all around him, his jacket is in a constant state of melting. During any of the long, slow closeups of the Rider, bubbles can be seen slowly rising to the surface of the leather, popping and running down as they melt. It make total sense, makes him look scary, and it's a really cool effect I dug the hell out of. Between the two movies, I'll take the grungy, scary looking one any day.

Secondly, Nicolas Cage plays Johnny Blaze in a much different way than he did before. In this film he's playing it really really tortured. He's in a constant struggle to keep the Rider inside him because he can't stop it from coming out, especially when evil is near. The problem is that he has no control when he becomes the Rider, and basically everyone around him is going to die, something he'd like to avoid. So it makes total sense why a big part of the movie is Johnny Blaze trying to find a way to exorcize himself and get rid of the curse.

And of course this is all played in a deliciously hammy way by one of my favorite hams. Watching Nicolas Cage deliver in a sweaty, face-twitching, barrage of rising falsetto shrieks such awesomely corny lines as "He's scratching at the door! He's scratching at THE DOOOOR-AH!!!!" is exactly why I watch these movies. Magnifique.

I had the same reaction when they cancelled "Arrested Development."

You know, between this, "Drive Angry" and "Season of The Witch," two movies which I really liked a lot, Cage seems to be drawn to this kind of enjoyable schlock. I say more power to him if the entertainment factor keeps up. Now, I would say "Ghost Rider: SoV" is the weakest of those three films, but it's hardly the worst of his filmography.

THE BOTTOM LINE - I can't say with a straight face that "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" was a good movie. It was a cheesy, dark, zany, over-the-top Nicolas Cage ham-fest with motorcycles, lots of nicely shot action and a Christopher Lambert cameo. If that sounds like a good time to you, bon anniversaire. Cautiously recommended.

Prometheus (2012)

Sometimes writing this blog sucks. When a movie reaches a certain level of quality it quickly becomes really hard to write anything about it out of fear of sounding redundant. Or sometimes there's just so much to talk about that you either write a novel or nothing at all. Here's one of those moments.

I'll own up to something right off the bat here, so everyone knows where I'm coming from with this. I am a HUGE "Alien" fan. The "Alien" franchise is one of my favorites of all time, right up there with "Star Wars." And while I didn't see them as a child, the "Alien" movies helped define my taste in both the science fiction and horror genres, and was a big part of my adolescence.

I'm such a big fan I even like "Alien Resurrection." Now, don't get me wrong, that is a terrible movie, but I still inexplicably have fun with it despite how terrible it is. "Alien Resurrection" is a glorious wreck of two trains, one carrying Joss Whedon writing a story about cloning while not knowing how cloning works and the other carrying 5,000 gallons of KY jelly. And he had the gall to come out and say that the reason it sucked was because all the actors said their lines wrong. Did he read his script? What an asshole.

Yup. Totally Sygourney Weaver's fault right there...

I'd been keeping on and off again tabs on "Prometheus" for years, ever since it was called "Alien 5." Then Ridley Scott changed the name, it became a prequel, then it wasn't a prequel, then it was, and it just kept going back and forth until I stopped listening. It was too painful to hear every time they made a big change. Eventually I walled myself off from it and kept in the dark. The only thing I allowed myself to see was the trailer when it was first released. And it looked so good that out of all the movies coming out in 2012, the only one that I was more excited about was "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey."

Needless to say, the expectations were sky high.

I ended up seeing "Prometheus" twice, in actuality. I saw it on opening day, but I realized I couldn't write a review of it at that point, because I didn't really know what I thought. I knew that I didn't hate it. I knew that I enjoyed myself, but I didn't know if that was because of my "fan-goggles" or not. Perhaps the fact that I was practically wetting myself with joy every time I saw something familiar was tainting my opinion of it.

So I went back and watched it again a few days later. And I'm happy to say that "Prometheus" improves drastically on a second viewing, and it confirmed my original thoughts on the film: "Prometheus" is really, really good.

Whoa! They made a "Mass Effect" movie? Sweet!

The thing about "Prometheus" is that there's a lot of ideas going on in it. Any movie that asks the question: "Who are we and where did we come from?" and attempts to give some answers is biting off a big mouthful to chew. Aside from that, there are recurring themes of evolution, rebirth, and parricide that really give "Prometheus" what I have to be snobby and call "an intellectual edge" that makes it a much smarter film than any film in the "Alien" franchise to date. Not to say that "Prometheus" is better, or that the others weren't "smart," but they were horror/action films. "Prometheus" is a before anything else a sci-fi film.

Not really knowing where to begin, I'll just start by saying that the cast was phenomenal. I was happy to see that Noomi Rapace confirmed my suspicions that her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" series was simply the result of a horrible character, and that she is actually a very good actress. I enjoyed her greatly in "Prometheus," although it is inevitable that comparisons to Sygourney Weaver will occur, since she is the Ripley character of this one.

Is she as good as Sygourney? That's impossible to say since Ripley and Beth are two completely different characters. I'd say that overall Beth isn't as emotionally (or physically) strong as Ripley is, but the way Noomi plays Beth, she never comes off as weak - just realistic. In fact you could argue that Beth is far more logical and intelligent than Ripley since she thinks about things instead of acting out of blind emotion (re: running back into the alien hive to save Newt). Perhaps that evens things out. Ripley is a badass, Beth is smart.

Noomi is also looking a HELL of a lot like Kari Byron in this. Ridley Scott must have been reading my "wish list."

 Oh baby. You can bust my myth any day. Awww yeah... #needsgirlfriendbadly

And of course, adding to the lovely factor is Charlize Theron, playing the corporate jerk who doesn't really care about any of the crew, kind of like Paul Reiser's character Burke in "Aliens." Between this and "Snow White and The Huntsman," she really can play wicked quite well. The real star here, though, is Michael Fassbender, who seems to be on a mission to completely dominate every single movie he is in. His portrayal of David, the ship's synthetic (robot) is, in a word, stunning. He had a lot to live up to, filling the shoes of Ian Holm and Lance Henriksen, but Fassebender is a mack-daddy, so of course he pulls it off.

And if you squint really hard and huff a lot of paint, Fassbender kind of looks like the love child of Ian Holm and Lance Henriksen.

I know there has been some division among fans, however. Honestly, I don't get it, but if someone wasn't paying attention, they might come away with misconceptions since this is not really like the other "Alien" films, at least at first glance. There really isn't any horror element to it, at least not in terms of what we've come to expect. Whereas the other movies were essentially slasher movies in space, "Prometheus" is more of a suspense/drama. The gore, for the most part, isn't really there like in the others, there is less emphasis on action, and there is more of a sense of mystery and discovery than tension and dread, although those do make themselves known on occasion.

But at the same time, there are a lot of similarities, particularly in the pacing department. It begins slow and it takes it's time until a nasty discovery is unveiled which threatens the crew. Slowly they begin to get picked off, just in this case not by a monster in the conventional sense. There is the equivalent of the chestburster scene, and although it is much later in the film, I would say that it's far more intense since the scene in the original was much quicker. A corporate betrayal is uncovered, and the ending is actually quite similar in a lot of ways. There's also a "fourth act" confrontation, which "Alien" basically invented. Hell, even the android's severed head starts talking.

And for being not as action-oriented, there are some legitimate squirming-in-your-seat nail biting moments that I imagine would be especially rough for anybody who has ever given birth. C-Section nightmares all around, kiddos.

 Nobody can watch this scene and tell me later it wasn't intense as all hell.

So I guess I don't understand where the split comes in. It may anger some to hear this, but take it from a person who is quite protective of the series: This is not a betrayal. This is "Alien" with an intellectual spin on it, and there's a lot to talk about in it.

When I talk about an intellectual spin and "big" ideas, dig on this:

SPOILER WARNING

According to "Prometheus," a race of aliens ("The Engineers") created human life on Earth by sacrificing one of their own into the primordial waters. In fact, that is presumably what's going on in the very first scene. The very first scene of the film is the beginning of life, and "The Engineers" are for all intents and purposes, God.

When the crew find the alien ship on the distant planet, it was on a course for Earth. It's reason was to wipe out all life in order to start again. It had been sitting there for around 2,000 years. Now, "Prometheus" takes place less than 100 years from now. Can you think of something possibly God-related that happened about 2,000 years ago that might make the creator of human-kind upset? Something that might make them say, "Ok, you've all had your fun, but you all suck, and it's time to start from scratch" perhaps?

That's right. "Prometheus" drops the hint of the idea that Jesus was an alien. That's a big idea.

/SPOILERS

"Prometheus" may be upsetting for someone looking for a movie just like what the rest of the movies were, but was that really all you wanted? Getting the same thing over and over again can get boring, and I personally didn't want to see Ridley Scott get back in the directors chair only to do his best James Cameron impression. James Cameron is the guy doing the best impression of James Cameron, anyways.

I guess what I mean is that if all you wanted was to see "Aliens" again, throw in the DVD of "Aliens." After all, there really was no improving on that one anyways. When I get Ridley Scott, I expect a high level of quality, and hopefully some interesting intellectual angles. And that's exactly what I got.

Well, that and a whole lot of creepy H.R. Giger looking architecture.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Prometheus" was not what I was expecting, but that didn't stop it from being very good. It's a fine entry into the "Alien" franchise which gets better with repeat viewings, since there's a lot to take in, and I dare say it's objectively the best of the series since "Aliens." If it doesn't make my Top 10 of 2012, I will be shocked. Its biggest problem is that it will feel very hollow if it's not followed up on. This NEEDS a sequel, or even better to be made into a trilogy to be linked into the events of "Alien." Highly Recommended.