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.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

So I've talked about Conan. The original one, that is. And while my plan was to do "Conan The Destroyer" next, unfortunately for me (or fortunately, depending on how apt you are to get excited over the prospect of watching a PG rated Conan movie) the duel-sided Conan DVD I have which has "The Destroyer" on side B seems to be so utterly ashamed of itself that it refused to play in any player I had. I tried it in 4 different machines capable of playing a movie. Nothing. This thing did not want to admit that it contained "Conan The Destroyer" among its 1's and 0's.

What was I to do? I wanted to watch some Barbarian action, even if it sucked. I was just in that kind of mood. I own "Red Sonja," but I didn't want to jump from the first to the third film. That's just incompatible with my OCD. Besides, that's technically not even a Conan movie, even though it's totally a Conan movie.

Ah, but there's another Conan movie out there, isn't there? It was Blockbuster to the rescue as I headed out to get my fix of the latest installment in the journeys of everyone's favorite monosyllabic Crom devotee. That's right, today we're doing a remake.

The 2011 remake of "Conan The Barbarian" was met with, let's be gentle here, horrible reception. The general consensus was that it was a brainless, soulless, silly affair that faffed about while smearing itself with blood and entrails only to pause randomly to grunt and throw feces at the camera like the uncivilized neanderthal it was. On the plus side it scored better reviews than "Pathfinder." So there's that.

"What? Conan never welded two swords. This movie sucks."

Does it really deserve all that hate? Well, to be honest it's not a very good movie. I'm not going to say that it's something that I'd make a point to own. Maybe if it was part of a package deal or in the $2.99 clearance bin or something I'd consider it. And that's got to be the Blu-Ray for $2.99, not the DVD. It's one of those movies that I'll probably get the strange urge to watch every 5 years, then I'd do so and be set for another half decade. This is not a film that has any special place in my heart.

On the other hand, it wasn't nearly as bad as you'd imagine given all the negativity. Was it silly? Oh yes. Was it stupid? You bet. Was it anywhere near the level of quality as the original film? Not a chance in blue hell. But I have to be honest and admit that I have seen worse sword and sorcery movies, and FAR worse remakes/reboots. That may sound like very scant praise, and perhaps it is, but I thought that the 2011 "Conan The Barbarian" was not without some merit.

Here's the thing. When it comes to what this film is all about, it's very clear what the intention was from the very start. It's about a big hulking shirtless man killing stuff in fountains of blood. After that fact is established, the question must then become "Does it do that well?" And the answer to that is "Yes, it's pretty good at killing stuff in fountains of blood." And Conan is sufficiently shirtless throughout the majority of the film. So there we go. It's not about anything more than big, hairy, swinging...

 Chutzpah.

If you come at it from that perspective it's a perfectly serviceable, bloody distraction for an hour and a half. It's not going to fire up your imagination much or enchant you with the setting like the original did for me, but I look at it the same way I look at something starring Seagal or Dolph Lundgren. I'm in it strictly to see something badass happen. And this movie has Jason Mamoa killing a guy with a catapult. If I want a well written drama staring shirtless Jason Mamoa as a barbarian, I'll watch "Game of Thrones." But for now, I just want to see him kill something.

Not that he isn't a badass in "Game of Thrones," mind you.

Speaking of him, I was excited when Mamoa was announced as the new Conan, and I got pretty much exactly what I both wanted and expected from him. It's no secret that Jason is one of my favorite up-and-coming action movie gods, and there's fantastic intensity in everything he does. His turn as Conan was no different, as we got a guy who is just as physically intimidating as Schwarzenegger was. But whereas Arnold was more silent and stone-faced in his anger, Mamoa is very expressive and animated with his barbarian rage. And while that makes him a much different Conan than we're used to, honestly he's a lot of fun to watch.

I seriously liked this portrayal of Conan, and I don't understand anyone who can't get a charge out of scenes such as when Mamoa drives his huge sword into the back of a foe, twisting the blade with an audible, sickening crunch while staring unblinking into the eyes of his next enemy, promising that this is the fate that awaits him, all with a crazed, toothy grin on his face. Then he pulls out the sword, smears the blood on his face and swears a God-oath that if his enemy runs, he will follow him to the gates of Hell if need be. And then kill him.

Are you not entertained?!

That's what I wanted, and that's what I got. Conan kills a bunch of stuff. That's worth the hour and a half of my time. Now there were issues, which mostly had to do with the plot. This is no intricate web of a story, naturally, but even so there are a number of silly things that didn't make a whole lot of sense, and had the unfortunate side-effect of making the entire production come across as somewhat half-assed.

For starters, the villain's plan centers around a mask that gives him "The Power Over Death." That is pretty much a direct quote. He plans on using it to resurrect his dead Necromancer wife, and of course after that's done, they'll rule the world. Never mind the fact that it seems that his wife was very easily killed before, as she couldn't even save herself from being burned at the stake, so the amount of power she actually has to take over the world is debatable, but I digress. The bigger problem comes from the fact that it's never very clear what exactly the powers of this said mask are, but I can tell you for a fact that it's not nearly as impressive as it sounds.

Once he gets the mask up and running, one would assume he'd be unstoppable. At least I was assuming that since it's what was implied for the entirety of the movie up to the point when he does in fact succeed and obtain this "Power Over Death." But its not like he can just will someone back to life with the mask or become immortal, which is what you would assume would be the case. But no, you need a ceremony and a body and special doowops and all that jazz to bring someone back, and it's not so much "raising from the dead" as it is "possessing someone with the soul of that dead person." The mask's role just seems to be to allowing the ceremony to work. There's nothing that it actually does. It's like a key to a car - it allows the car to drive, but it's not doing much more than just sitting there. And as far as immortality goes, I assure you that he can be killed even with the mask on. Quite easily, actually.

On the plus side, at least the villains look dignified.

You see what I'm getting at? If you're going to make the villain scary due to an object that grants power, make the powers that the object grants actually scary. Make it so he can't be killed while he wears it. Make it so he can resurrect the dead with his mind. Make it so he's conjuring skeletons from the ground or something. Anything but what they did, which was nothing. In fact, he was more scary and intimidating in the movie before he got the mask fully functional. Like that one time he fought Conan in melee combat and won? He and his witch daughter were pulling out all kinds of crazy magical stuff during that fight and straight up kicked Conan's ass. Then at the end he gets this "Ultimate Power" and he's got nothing? What a crock.

You know, maybe they were going for the whole hubris angle, but somehow I doubt that's what was going on. I just think they didn't define their terms well enough, which made the whole point of the villain's plan seem questionable and confusing. And even though Stephen Lang as the villain was actually pretty fun since he was hamming it up to cosmic levels, he just wasn't a good baddie for Conan to take on. Particularly when compared to the original, with James Earl Jones' quiet dignity and actual power - something Lang possessed neither of.

There's also the issue of Conan's friends and followers being thrown at us with literally no introduction, seemingly with the expectation that we've known these guys for years and are deeply familiar with them and their backstories. This is untrue. I have no idea who these people are, and it's confusing and really tends to make me not care about any of them. On the other hand, Subotai and The Wizard and even Valeria in the original had just about as much depth. So they got me on that one. Plus the cast of good guys is honestly just a tiny bit better in the remake, I'm going to be honest.

Oh, and the original didn't have Ron Perlman as Conan's father. The remake one upped it there.

The strange thing is that out of all of the things that could have bugged me about the 2011 "Conan The Barbarian," it was the damn boat. That damn boat was the most awkward and confusing crap I've ever seen. Okay, okay, okay. What is the damn boat, you might be asking? I'll tell you what the damn boat is.

So Stephan Lang's got an army right? They're traveling around, bopping from place to place, getting all the things he needs to make the mask work. In this cadre of men and supplies are a bunch of elephants. Elephants to carry heavy things. Well, all the elephants are carrying just one heavy thing. Can you guess what this one heavy thing may be?

It's the damn boat.

Why is he carrying a boat across the land? It appears all he is doing is using it for a portable house. That's all he does: Sleep in it. I get the idea that he's a powerful warlord and decadence and all that good stuff, but do you really need a damn boat? That seems awfully overcomplicated. And the minute I saw it I said to myself "They had better use that to cross an ocean or have a battle on it or something." Well guess what? Never does that damn boat even touch the water in this movie. I don't even think it gets rained on. No action takes place on it. The only scenes that happen on the boat are conversations between Stephan Lang and his daughter. Conversations that could have occurred literally ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD BESIDES ON A DAMN BOAT.

Godamn it, that pissed me off.

Check out the trailer for the remake of "Conan The Barbarian." Avoid if you dislike fade in/outs.

THE BOTTOM LINE - The remake of "Conan The Barbarian" is not the horror show you may have heard, but it's critical that you don't expect too much out of it. I mean, it IS directed by the guy who did the "Friday the 13th" reboot. Expectations should be adjusted accordingly. The first twenty minutes with Conan as a child are really solid, and are the best part of the movie. Once Jason Momoa shows up it goes downhill pretty quick. It's not his fault, or anybody else in this movie's fault. They just didn't have much to work with. But hey, a lot of stuff dies. If that's all you need, you could do worse. At least it's rated R. (coughConanTheDestroyercough)

Drive (2011)

This is going to be more of a rant about style than the movie itself, for two reasons. The first is that as far as plot goes, the less you know about "Drive," the better it will probably be. This is because there are some genuine shocks in the movie that you probably won't see coming, which of course the trailer does a nice job of spoiling, so don't watch it, and I don't want to ruin anything either. The second is that the plot isn't what is going to make you want to watch this movie. What is going to interest you, if you're interested, is the fact that "Drive" is very influenced by the independent film movement, and if you like stuff like that, you're going to love it.  That for me, however, was the thing that ruined what could have been a very good film.


"Drive" stars Ryan Gosling as a stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for robbers and such. He's very good at it, and seems to be doing well when he gets pulled into a situation with some mobsters who are shaking down the ex-con husband of a lady living next door he happens to have a thing for. In an effort to help them out, since he has come to like them, bad things end up happening and Driver (we are never told his actual name) has to become a guardian angel for these people. In essence, it's a remake of "Shane" with intensely brutal Robert Rodriguez level violence near the back half. At least, when the film feels like having stuff happening, which for the most part it's not too keen on doing.


I think that at its core, "Drive" is a good movie. I'm just not a fan of its direction. I regret to say that I've not seen any other film by director Nicholas Winding Refn, but if this is his usual M.O., I'm guessing I probably wouldn't like much of his other stuff, either. I know he's kind of a big deal in the more hip, independent film movement, and boy does it show, because this movie has "independent" written all over it. And if that's your particular cup of tea, by all means, disregard what I'm saying here and know that you'll probably like "Drive."


What do I mean by independent? I think the easiest way to describe it is "taking its time." There are long stretches of not much, if anything, being said by the characters in the so-called "conversation." I put that in quotation marks because whether or not it counts as an actual conversation can be argued. It's not that there isn't anything being said, it's that 80% of the content is what's not being said. And that's fine, I can dig that. It means that the actors are forced to emote without dialogue, which makes for good acting.

But I can only dig that to an extent. My problem comes from the fact that as an audience, we know what is being conveyed through looks and meaningful glances pretty quickly. Is that a point in the favor of the audience for being smart or for the actors for being really good? I don't know. But the fact remains that it's never very obtuse what's going on. And because of that, it always seems like the movie is playing catch-up with me. I understand the fact that Ryan Gosling is becoming attached to the family next door to him. I don't need to see 2 minutes of him staring at them with a slight smile on his usually stoney exterior to get that.

You may think this is a static picture, but it's actually 3 complete minutes of the film.

In some ways, as heady as "Drive" is, it really seems like it looks down on its audience. After all, if this was movie for smart movie goers, it wouldn't hold our hand or brow-beat us with emotions like that. We can read faces and expressions to deduce emotions. Overly long moments of the same emotion for so long just seems to scream "DO YOU GET IT?!" Obviously, this is not what was intended, so I can only assume that "Drive" is a movie for people who really like very, very long stretches of build-up.


And why do they like it? To look smart. That's my take on it, anyways. If someone gets a heightened sense of tension or emotional turmoil boiling up underneath from it then more power to them (far be it for me to judge) but I think deep down, that's what's really going on here. "Drive" and indeed, the whole independent film movement is basically tailor-made as a direct response to the faster paced, flashy Hollywood model, and the idea seems to be to just do whatever it is that Hollywood doesn't do. And because of this I don't think that it's always done because the filmmakers are passionate about this style. They do it because it's what is expected of them. Because independent movies are smart, see? And if they make a film this way, the director is smart as well.


I totally understand the purpose behind slowing things down. You do it so that when the action does happen, it's amplified. The juxtaposition of loud and quiet is important to any effective thriller, and sometimes a movie just needs to breathe. But sometimes it can just get obnoxious, especially when you have dynamite actors popping up elsewhere in the film, reminding you of how much more interesting the villains are than the two main characters. They are absolutely blown away by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, who knock it out of the park every time they appear, and provide far more tension with actually doing stuff than Ryan Gosling is staring intensely at someone. Why can't we see more of them? Why can't the movie be about these guys?!


Because decent pacing is for those Hollywood hacks who aren't "smart."


This is just my personal taste and grievance with pretentious movies in general. I wouldn't go so far as to call "Drive" pretentious, it's not like it's a piece of garbage Terrence Malick self-congratulatory wank-fest, but it is loitering in Pretentious' parking lot. There are definitely some noses elevated a few degrees above normal here.


There's a good movie in here somewhere. I like the story, the action scenes are downright inspired, including an incredible opening 15 minutes, and despite my comments earlier I like the characters both good and bad. It just needed another pass in the editing booth to shave 20 to 25 minutes off the run-time that it desperately needed. 

It really does have a great cast, though. I've said that before but it bears repeating. I don't particularly like Ryan Gosling, but he was quite good at playing a quiet, brooding, borderline psychopath. Bryan Cranston also fun to watch as always, but the real gems were the bad guys, Ron Perlman and particularly Albert Brooks. The screen was on fire when they were on it. Although with Albert there was something a tad distracting...

You can't not see it...

I'm thinking David Cronenberg could have done amazing things with "Drive." It's actually not too far off from a lot of his stuff as it is. Watch "A History of Violence" or even better, "Eastern Promises" and you'll see what I mean. Cronenberg knows how to pace a film, and knows how to take his time, but he doesn't go overboard with it. You never feel like fast forwarding through a Cronenberg movie.

This one, however, I did.


THE BOTTOM LINE - If you're a fan of independent movies, this is for you. If you go into it thinking it will be a fast-paced explosion fest, it's not. Worth it for some really good acting, but know what you're getting yourself into first. Also, fans of excessive, borderline comical gore would also do well to be warned. Cautiously Recommended, with a BIG "if."