Firstly, I thought this was a great movie.
Next, I want to immediately address a few obvious criticisms, which I think are all justitified on the basis of making a dramatic film. Of course the Jaeger's are an absolutely ridiculous way of defending Earth. With unlimited resources and the co-operation of all nations I'd just build a series of massive plasma cannons pointing at the breach. But no one really wants to watch a movie of dispassionate drone attacks, so fair enough having some bipedal robots. By the same logic I can also forgive the concession of a robot requiring two pilots, to split the neural load. It's silly, but makes it more fun.
I like the idea of the pilots becoming heroes. In the rapid five minute catch up at the very start you get a glimpse of a world where nothing else matters but the men who are saving the World. The drifting skill is presented a bit like a psychic power, in that you never know who'll be good at it, and so you get unlikely fighting heroes without any athletic prowess. Having said that though they do all seem quite muscly and good at fighting with sticks. And the synchronicity required to co-pilot gets a bit relaxed as the film goes on - to begin with we see twins, then it's father-son and brother-sister and by the end just two people who fancy each other.
When the main guy Raleigh rejoins the program there's only very few Jaegers left, and with Kaiju's coming through the wall more and more it really seems like they're doomed. Only the most streotypical national pilots are left - massive stoic Russians, impassive Chinese, cocky Aussies and heroic Americans. It's such a desperate state of affairs that it feels like there's already been an apocalypse, and these are the only survivors. In fact, the rest of the World is still all there, but they seem to have lost interest a bit and are only building a big crumbly wall. Having just four Jaegers left does crank up the tension though.
The pilot I'm afraid to mention is the Japanese woman, Mako. She is totally rubbish, and the whole story of her not being allowed to co-pilot, then being allowed after all, is tiresome. I wonder if originally the script had Raleigh flying solo or with someone else, then at the last minute they realised there were no women in the film at all so wrote one in. The other subplot, about the black market in dead monster parts, is much more interesting. It's the one diversion outside of the main robot battles.
After Man of Steel I vowed to give up on 3D films, but accidentally went to the wrong performance of Pacific Rim and had to buy another pair of 3D glasses. I'm glad I did, as the 3D was awesome. Worked even better than Life of Pi. It felt like I was already watching the remastered special edition.
In fact most of the film was gripping. Crucially, the aliens looked really good and reptilian. I wanted to know more about their command structure. When the over-excited scientist mind melds with the Kaiju brain I was braced for one of two possible outcomes. Either the aliens were being misunderstood, and might even be good aliens, or they were just super evil and there was even more incentive to kill them. it turned out to be the second option, which is at least simpler. This mind meld was two way, and naturally the aliens have a hive mind so they all knew the human's plan, but I'm not sure if they did anything with this knowledge. Also I baulked slightly at the throwaway line that the aliens invaded before with the dinosaurs, but that didn't work out.
The early battle scenes were better than expected. It was good meaty fighting. But I didn't feel any empathy when the robots got injured. And I never quite worked out how interdependent the two pilots were. Was the talk of left-brains and right-brains just nonsense or did it imply anything? I'm pretty sure that Crimson Typhoon with it's three pilots and three arms makes no sense. The final battle did nothing for me, as it was all underwater and you couldn't tell what was going on once there were multiple robots and aliens.
I'm prepared to forgive a lot though as it looked so good.
Finally here's a list of things that didn't make sense to me. They're fairly minor points, and maybe I'll work it out when I watch this again.
- Mako knew her father was dying (at one point she prompts him to wipe his nose), so why after drifting with her does Raleigh not know about his cancer?
- The last ditch plan is to drop a nuclear bomb into the breach. Why do they believe this has any chance of working, when it's exactly what's been tried and failed before? (This is before they find out about using alien DNA to open up the breach).
- Idris Elba's character Pentecost used to fly with Aussie Dad (which is how Pentecost justifies being able to drift with Aussie son). So how come Aussie Dad wrongly claims to his son that Raleigh is the only one who's ever piloted alone?
