PACIFIC RIM (2013)

In Pacific Rim, director Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy & Pan's Labyrinth) presents us a Godzilla meets Transformers flick of monumental proportions.

In the not-too-distant future, a race of monstrous aliens called Kaiju (Japanese for monster) attack earth through an underwater portal in the depths of the Pacific ocean. They wreak havoc on several coastal cities across the globe laying persons & property to waste in the typical Hollywood style assited with a good dose of CGI. After finding that the conventional weapons are futile against these monsters which appear evolving into ever more dangerous creatures, humans respond by building their own combat force of monstrous robots called Jaegers (German for Hunters). Every Jagger is required to be piloted by two humans since a single human is incapable -mentally & physically - of controlling this colossal machine.  The brains of the two pilots are connected through a technology called neutral drift which in turn operates as a singular command unit controlling the Jaeger.

What follows is a series of visceral action set pieces in which the Jaegers take on the Kaijus on land, water and even air through traditional combat styles that includes fisticuffs, swords and some heavy duty artillery. The success of these movies depend a lot on the level of visual mastery which could make the viewer go WOW. The story and the characters are at best props that aid in unravelling the carefully planned action set-pieces though Del Toro does try valiantly to build certain emotional depth to each of the characters.

While Del Toro is no Cameron or Whedon here, it helps that he is definitely not Michael Bay either. He definitely knows the quality of output that is required to engage the viewer without making a mere noisy mangled mess of the visual effects through stunts where one never knows who is fighting whom to what effect. The action here, while loud (which puts me off personally) is well designed, executed with panache and captured well which engages the viewer (especially in IMAX 3D). A rousing score accentuates the action on screen though, at times, it gets drowned in the melee of the wreckage around.

It may not score big on the front of story or characters that touch your heart or a plot that engages your grey matter. It is designed to be and remains a delectable eye-candy for action junkies who prefer some well executed action setpieces on some CGI wizardry and to that extent, is very satisfying and fun watch. Guilty pleasure, if one may prefer to call it so ....

A GOOD ONE-TIME WATCH !