New Movie Review: Pacific Rim

It's been so long since my last review, I nearly don't know where to start, I'm hoping these reviews will be more regular and that I'll be getting to more films as they come out in the cinema, especially since now I live near a cinema again. I guess I should get on with the review.

"Today at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen to believe in each other. Today we face the monsters that are at our door! Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!"

          Pacific Rim is the latest film sci-fi film by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, so if you are familiar with del Toro's work you'll know to expect, a film that's not only visually stunning but one that also has an interesting story that weaves everything together. Pacific Rim takes it inspiration from the Japanese genres of Kaiju movies (i.e. Godzilla) and blends it with another Japanese (mostly anime) staple the mecha genre (think power rangers/transformers except bigger robots) and made them its own.

          The story is set in the not to distant future, when monsters (Kaiju) rise from an inter-dimensional portal in the Pacific ocean, at first they overwhelm our conventional military forces and are barely taken down after days of fighting. As the Kaiju attacks start to become more frequent the worlds leaders come together in order to come up with a solution to fighting these colossal beasts, they're solution are Jaeger's immense robots designed to fight these monsters. The Jaeger's require two pilots working in tandem in order for them to function, as it is too much strain for one individual on their own. For a time the Jaeger's work and seem to stem the advance of the Kaiju, but this is short lived and as the Kaiju keep coming they seem to adapt to the Jaeger's and grow in size, this leads the worlds leaders to instead pursue a giant wall blocking off the pacific ocean. Now I do realise there are a few spoilers in the previous section but this is only the first twenty minutes of the film and are given away in the trailers.

          I'd rather not spoil the rest of the film, but I will say the story is very well thought out and makes you care for the characters and also their struggle to save the world.

          I have to mention the CGI simply put its amazing, the character design's are all unique and extremely different, each Kaiju is unique and so are the Jaeger's seen in the film. The most impressive part of the CGI though is the fact it tricks you into forgetting that these things don't exist, it shows a great understanding of the ability of CGI by del Toro and the amazing things those animators can do when given time to do their job properly, in fact I believe that the CGI sections were all decided in advance of the film even shooting so as to give the animators the time to truly make everything look believable and add in those small details that really help to sell the shots.

          The gamer in me loved the fact the GLaDOS (Ellen McLain from the Portal games) was the voive of Gipsy Danger's (the main Jaeger) AI, even if I did feel a little uneasy trusting her. Acting wise Idris Elba steals the show, I even used his speech as the introduction, Rinko Kikuchi is also good as Mako and Charlie Hunnam is fine as the main character despite what I've heard others say, everyone else do a great job as well with their characters.

          So weighing everything up about the film would I recommend it? Yes its an amazing film, but I cannot say that everyone will like it. If your a fan of summer blockbusters definitely go see it, you'll love it, if your a movie fan who can appreciate a film for what it is and likes to read into things you'll enjoy it too, but if sci-fi's and summer blockbusters aren't your thing I don't think you'll like the film, which isn't the films fault and is your loss but if you don't like these kind of films you don't like them. So score wise I'd give Pacific Rim 9/10, pretty much the perfect summer block buster but won't convert those who don't like the genre.

Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) - Peter Jackson

"Why don't we have a game of riddles and if I win, you show me the way out of here?"

          To say I’ve been looking forward to this film along time is an understatement, so unfortunately I cannot promise an unbiased review, I can instead promise a fan’s review. So for me personally the build up and production history of this film are as big a part of its story as the actual film and book on which it’s based. This is quiet a rare film for me where I knew the story going in and for the most part knew what to expect having read the book, and yet half the films story was new to me, you could say the story  was Unexpected.

          Ok on to a bit of the history of this film, I’ll try and keep this brief. The film has been in production since late 2007 and was originally set to be two film directed by  Guillermo del Toro, with Peter Jackson serving as Executive producer, development of the film was notoriously slow which eventually lead to Del Toro’s departure from the project and Jackson taking over directing duties. Now as most of you will know the story of The Hobbit is a prequel to The Lord Of The Rings (LOTR), it was originally written as a children story and having read the book the story is very light and doesn’t have the same depth to it as LOTR so I was shocked when it was announced that Peter Jackson was looking to split the story up into three films, as I personally thought two was stretching it a bit but made sense if they were going to tie the plot of The Hobbit into that of LOTR. I think what we got in the cinema was the extended version cut of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re a fan of the extended versions of the LOTR movies, but can turn off casual/new fans of the film franchise. Also the addition of a lot of extra material from JRR Tolkien’s other works mainly the Appendices from the end of The Return of the King and possible taking some cues from The Silmarillion (especially the parts filling in the blanks between as well as around The Hobbit and LOTR stories).

          So thoughts on the film, as much as I loved it, it was a bit slow and took ages to get going. We’re introduced to a younger Bilbo (Sixty years before the events of the LOTR took place), who for the most part isn’t as likable character as the Bilbo we meet in the LOTR. This younger Bilbo is quiet reserved and stuck in his ways and has very little interest in doing anything out of the ordinary. He is whoever forced into action by his friend Gandalf the grey and eventually agrees to join an adventure with a group of thirteen Dwarfs and Gandalf looking to reclaim the Dwarves lost home from the possible deceased dragon Smaug. This first film is mostly following Bilbo’s journey to overcome his more comfort-loving reserved side and him realising that he can be a useful member of the team and that he has unique skills to offer. There is also a lot of side plots introduced in this movie that weren’t present in the book that while the fill in the blanks of what’s happening in Middle Earth, do little to serve the story except increase the running time. Having said that though, I really did enjoy this film, visually its stunning and while practical effects such as having actual actors in make up as the Orc’s were replaced with Computer Generated Graphics this time around I still found myself being drawn into the story and investing in the character.

          While I think the decision to split the story into three films was foolish and resulted in scenes that would have normally been included on an extended cut of this film making it into this movie, it was still a great movie. The only warning I’d put on it was to only go see it if you love The Lord Of The Rings movies (especially the extended cuts) if you only liked them maybe just wait until its out on DVD/BluRay and rent it then. For me personally this film was an 8/10, great potential but a bit bloated in part.

Trailer Review: Pacific Rim Trailer #1 (2013) - Guillermo del Toro

To Fight Monsters We Created Monsters

"Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!"

          Ooh my God this trailer looks amazing. I've been following this film loosely as its the project Guillermo del Toro decided to make after walking away from The Hobbit and up until seeing this trailer I thought he'd made a big mistake. But with the recent interest in the Monster movie genre with films such as Troll Hunter, The Host(2006) and Cloverfield I thought Guillermo del Toro could be the man to change the fortunes of this ill-fated genre and after watching the trailer today I'd say he has. Now as any good movie fan will tell you never judge a movie by its trailer as they can cut the best half hour of the film into a decent trailer and leave out the other hour and a half of utter crap, but looking at the man's previous offerings (Pan's Labyrinth, Blade II and both of the Hellboy films) and taking a leap of faith I feel this will be a good movie (especially for Sci-fi and monster movie fans) but it also has the potential to be a great movie if handled correctly.

          This movie is a homage to the Kaiju genre, which is the Japanese monster movie genre to me and you made up of films such as Godzilla, Mothra and countless others. To me this movie is also homaging the other big Japanese genre of giant fighting robots, basically think Power Rangers and Transformers but controlled by being connected to the pilots brain, this is more an anime genre in Japan and is quiet common with series such as Evangelion, Ghost in the shell, Gundam and Macross. But like I said Power Rangers (or Super Sentai the series that each season of Power Rangers is based on) and Transformers are prehaps the best known western examples of this genre.

Check out the trailer below and if thats not working here's a link to it: http://youtu.be/K-ZcqwvQbas 

Anyway I guess I should maybe talk a little bit about the trailer and what I liked about it, can I just say the whole thing? Ok I love the CGI design of the Mecha ((giant fighting robots)called Jaegers in this movie) and the monster (he looks like a cross between Godzilla and a shark). The fights between the Mecha and the monsters just look amazing and the human cast look to be top notch with Idris Elba stealing the show for me. So depending on how the next trailer looks I'll be there to see this film as soon as it comes out.