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July 12th, 2013 
Peter Nolan 
Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori in Pacific Rim.
Source: Supplied
REVIEW OF THE WEEK: Pssst! You like monsters, right? We’re talking mega-monsters that don’t mess about none.
Godzilla-ish beasts from an alternate dimension that are here to wreck the planet, and to heck with the consequences.
The slimy, scaly, scary monsters of Pacific Rim can crunch entire continents for fun, and will munch on all mankind for short-term sustenance.
What about robots? You dig on them, too?
Wait until you get a load of the ‘bots of Pacific Rim. They are all-terrain automatons the size of skyscrapers, and are weaponised with all the latest death-rays and stuff.
One last question. Are you into monsters fighting with robots?
Well, Pacific Rim isn’t shy about laying on an all-you-eat buffet of creature-versus-machine smack-downs. Get set to gorge yourself. Or go get a ticket to something else.
Still keen? Just keep the following in mind. There are no stars in the cast. No characters remotely worth caring about. No story that can possibly be understood by mere mortal moviegoers.
There is a prologue in Pacific Rim that is supposed to bring us up to speed on a terrifying near-future for Earth. However, it takes the entire opening act to arrive at what filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is really driving at here.
At some point late in the 2020s, life as we know it is being held to ransom by the Kaiju. That is the collective name given to the monsters, though not all of them look (or lash out) the same.
The Kaiju regularly rise from the ocean via a portal that begins in their own world. Once in our world, the Kaiju just want to smash all our stuff, and squash all of us.
All that stands in their way are the Jaegers. They are the robots, and they are all we have in terms of keeping the Kaiju at bay.
The technology powering the Jaegers is fairly impressive. They look a bit like Transformers, only with two human pilots inside.
The combat skills of each pilot team (who should be called Jaegermeisters, but are not) are enhanced by a “shared neural pathway.” Which kind of means the pilots are joined at the brain whenever operating a Jaeger that is fighting a Kaiju.
Got all that? Doesn’t really matter if you don’t.
All that matters in Pacific Rim are those many moments when the Jaegers and the Kaiju embark upon yet another tectonic skirmish.
The vision that del Toro is pursuing in these epic action sequences is quite unlike anything seen on screen before.
Though most viewers will not always be able to understand what the hell is happening, they will always be impressed by the scope of del Toro’s achievement here.
The mesmerising special-effects work in Pacific Rim – especially when welded to a bone-shaking sound design – amounts to a force field that magnetically conquers your attention, then overpowers the senses with ease.
Just in case you haven’t got the message about Pacific Rim already, I repeat :
There will be monsters. There will be robots. There will be several, spectacularly seismic scuffles between the two parties. There is nothing else to see here.
> Pacific Rim [M]
Rating: 3/5
Director: Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy)
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Ron Perlman, Charlie Day.
“Tomorrow, when the awe began”
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