Brack

It's not clear how much Chau knew or didn't know about drifting, so yeah, it wasn't a given, considering Chau is the only character to put two and two together, which is another problem with the story. His realization of drifting being a two way street feels like an afterthought.

I would have rather preferred the Chinese and Russians weren't in the movie if they are simply token characters. Why feature them except to be equivalent to red shirts from Star Trek? Why should I care about the characters when the filmmaker clearly didn't? I had the same problem with the Daily Planet cast at the end of MoS, so it's not like I'm cherry picking here.

RocShemp

Brack, let's be clear. Everyone involved with the Jaeger program (including black market dealers like Chau) know exactly how the drift works. Until Charlie Day mentioned the hive mind to Chau, no one stopped to consider that the Kaiju passed on Day's knowledge to their masters. That's all there was to it.

DJLinus

Big, dumb summer fun. I loved it. (I do agree with one gripe mentioned earlier in the thread. It would've been nice to see a battle that wasn't during a rainy night.)

Rifftrax have really cut back on doing commentaries for contemporary films, but I sure hope they do one for PR when it hits video, as sort of a throwback to the Gamera episodes of MST3K.

She was great. I thought those flashback sequences were well done. They had an emotional resonance that I wasn't expecting at all going into a movie like this. I actually felt really bad for her.

B5Erik

I saw it this morning, and both my daughter and I liked it a lot. It was a lot of fun.

The visual effects were really, really good. If they can bring this level to Godzilla that could be a great monster movie.

Pacific Rim is one of those movies that you just go with - it's not rocket science, it's not subtle, but it is a lot of fun.

Brack

Yeah, they know how the drift works with people, but not with anything else. Apparently Chau is the only one smart enough to figure this out? That either makes Geizler a really stupid scientist or Chau the only one in the movie with a brain. Either way it's bad writing. My mistake was giving the scene more credit than it deserved. For that I apologize. It made it an even worse scene than I originally thought. A stupid sight gag and Ron Perlman hamming it up.

RocShemp

Charlie Day's character is a rambling spastic scientist that can barely form two sentences without going into a shouting fit. All anyone got from him was that he drifted with a Kaiju brain and got intel from it. He never said they had a hive mind until he mentioned it while rambling at Hannibal Chau. That's why ROn Perlman had a WTF look on his face and told him to repeat the part about how he knew they had a hive mind (information that Charlie Day's character hadn't shared until that point). Had Idris Elba been told that same piece of info, he'd be pissed at Charlie Day too.

It isn't that Hannibal Chau was the only one smart enough to see the danger. It's that he was the only one that Charlie Day told about the hive mind aspect. Before that reveal, no one else knew that about the Kaiju.

fumanstan

I haven't read through the thread yet, but just got back from watching this and I'd say it's the most fun I had at a movie this summer, short of maybe This Is The End. I'm not sure if i'd call it the best movie, but more fun then the other action movies i've seen, including Fast 6, Iron Man 3, Star Trek, and Man of Steel as it hit just about everything I wanted it to.

It was a little slow setting up the characters after the prologue, and I could have done without the Charlie Day and Ron Perlman silliness, and kind of wish it was played more seriously, but those are really really minor complaints (especially compared to the ones I had about Iron Man 3 or Man of Steel). I've liked Elba before in various roles, but I thought he sold his presence incredibly well here. Hunnam was very good as the lead, and I thought Rinko was super cute throughout and the two of them worked well together. The action was exactly what I wanted out of the movie, and well put together and directed. Every punch, gun, or slice had me grinning ear to ear. Loved it.

fumanstan

Not to mention I don't think very many people had access to a brain, or knew about the secondary brain thing to even make the connection.

The Bus

Saw this in a packed IMAX theater here in NY on a late Saturday night showing. The effects are great, and for the most part you can make sense of what exactly is going on. As others have said, it would have been great if some of the fights were not at night or in the water.

The problem here is that the primary character is mostly undeveloped and there's no connection with the audience: something which immensely helped the Transformer films. Critique Michael Bay, but his movies at least all have memorable characters.

The story is threadbare and the science doesn't make any sense.

All that said, the fights are awesome and there's just a lot of goofy stuff to love about this film. Better than your average sci-fi action film for sure.

Why So Blu?

Yeah, I remember Michael Bay's characters in Transformers...I remember how stupid they were. Can never say that about any of GDT's films. He's incapable of making a bad film. He makes genre/nerd films for us. I love him.

The Antipodean

A really fun popcorn flick, I have a feeling die-hard Del Toro fans will find it lacking compared to his best but I had fun with it. The spectacle was pretty astounding and as an old time Godzilla fan it made me cheer.

Not perfect, though - a few major faults was Hunnam being a cipher and the insistence on almost every battle having to take place in the dark in the pouring rain -- do you think that was because they felt it would look "fake" to have robots and dinosaur-like monsters throwing down in broad daylight? Either way it became tiresome. I also wish there was more Ron Perlman but you could say that about anything he's in for me.

I give it a solid "B" or "B+" depending on how I feel at the moment.

Why So Blu?

Don't think so, as the rain and weather made it way more dynamic than if it were in the day time, but they did have that scene in Australia, which nearly gave me a stroke due to how fast their Jaeger moved. Wow, that was a great scene.

Brack

You have repeated this at least twice now. It's still bad storytelling. That the Laeger crew leader just blindly sends Geizler to Chau was just stupid. It was just an excuse to have Ron Perlman show up as a character to satisfy the nerd crowd, nothing more.

RocShemp

Actually, I would have loved for more of that fight in Sydney and the fight in Tokyo. Both were daylight fights and looked fantastic. And that crab/spider monster in Tokyo looked badass. Also, huge missed opportunity not having a fight in a snowscape similar to where Gipsy Danger went down after the first fight.

Why So Blu?

I'm hoping that GDT puts out his first "director's cut" of any of his films, sans Mimic. It would be unreal and gives an another excuse for a trip back to the Bleak House.

RocShemp

The character wasn't even written for Ron Perlman. He acknowledged as much when asked about his character.

RocShemp

The BD of Hellboy is also a director's cut. Sadly, they never released the theatrical cut on BD.

slop101

I liked the concept, the look and the action, but the characters, all of them, felt really flat to me. They were all either bad cliches, or empty voids. I just didn't care what happened to them.

Movies that stand the test of time all have great, memorable characters to latch onto that people want to revisit, and this had no such character.

Brack

Spoken like a true fanboy.

Anybody is capable of making a bad movie, period. No one is immune to this. He simply hasn't made enough movies to warrant such a declaration.

I liked Pacific Rim, despite the stupidity of the story (or lack there of) at times. B-/B as well.

Any scientist/tech person from Transformers trumps the scientists from Pacific Rim. And the Kaiju were stupid aliens.

Why So Blu?

And you're a Michael Bay fanboy obviously. Your comment is invalid.

EDIT - But I'd totally fuck the Australian scientist (useless chick) blonde in the first Transformers film. At least she had the sense not to come back for the sequel(s).

fumanstan

As much as I enjoyed Pacific Rim, the scientists were as bad as any in the Transformers movies. I like Charlie Day in It's Always Sunny, and also Horrible Bosses, but no need to see him be the same guy in a movie like this.

Why So Blu?

Yikes, I totally forgot about that one. I love the GDT commentary about that version, because GDT states that it's a more grounded flick in that it can take place in the real world, which is why he added all of those extra scenes of Rasputin and his followers making deals with the government.

Why So Blu?

Never seen an episode and only know Burn from Dark Knight Rises, which is a complete 180 from his character in PR.

Brack

That quote you snagged was Perlman's opinion. Besides, the finished product is what matters, I couldn't care less about original intentions. I don't believe for a second that Del Toro wouldn't jump at the chance of getting Perlman into his movies, considering he's one of the few actors he has that actually can act. Unfortunately, the Chau character felt very forced and obligatory.

DJariya

Just got back from an Imax 3D showing. I had a blast. A really fun 130+ minute thrill ride. The Kaijus and the Jaegars looked fantastic. It's such a massive scale movie that I have to give del Toro major props for what he accomplished. None of his previous work came even close to the production scale of this movie.

If I had to make a criticism, some of the characters, especially Charlie Hunnam's Raleigh, are really underdeveloped. I did like the sort of backstory about Mako and Elba's character and how they met.

The comedic element with Charlie Day and Ron Perlman's character wasn't too bad. I got a few laughs out of it. He was kind of annoying, but obviously he was there to keep the mood light and not make this a gloomy picture throughout.

Overall I give it 4 out of 5 stars.