Pacific Rim is set on Earth in the year 2020. Kaiju emerge from a fissure from beneath the Pacific and attack major cities on Earth. To stop this, governments of the world have banded together to take care of this threat and came up with the jaegers. Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day (Always Sunny guy!) Burn Gorman, Diego Klattenhoff, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman (well, kinda), and is directed by Guillermo del Toro.
One of the best things about enjoying this movie is that you do not have to turn off all reasoning and logic for this to be a highly entertaining film. As long as you can accept the lot of the miracle exceptions and forgive wonky physics, you won't have a hard time forgiving some lapses in regular non-Pacific Rim movie universe logic. [spoiler]Like Gypsy Danger burning while falling through the atmosphere even though it couldn't have fallen fast enough to compress all the air underneath the robot to trigger combustion, and how an EMP blast knocks everything out except the Gypsy Danger.[/spoiler]
The Pacific Rim universe is pretty well thought out. In an interview, Guillermo del Toro said they had a 400 page bible on just the universe, which includes things like the black market, the kaiju and the jaegers. Within that universe are those little giant-robot-vs-monster clichés that we all love like each robot having a finishing go-to weapon like swords and plasma canons.
One of the biggest draws of Pacific Rim is the eye candy. And by jeebus, is this movie a beaut! This is probably one of the most visually impressive movies I've seen ever. Every jaeger was designed amazingly. My favorite one would have to be the Striker Eureka because it looks so sleek, kinda like a Macross mech. With the monster master GDT at the helm, the kaiju would definitely have to look impressive and yes, he did not disappoint. Those things look scary as almighty hell, even though some of them seem like standard GDT designs. Even the jaeger suits the pilots wear look great. They remind me a lot of Mass Effect suits, even down to the omni-tools. The Russian team rocked those the hardest.
Each and every fight scene, even those that didn't involve kaiju, were brilliantly choreographed. For the massive fights, every movement, especially the punches, had a lot of weight and intention to them that they all felt so visceral and forceful. The non-kaiju fights were just as good, with all their jiu jitsu moves.
Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the movie that do fall short. Lead character Raleigh, played by Charlie Hunnam, had two emotions - stoic and angry. Any time the character needed to make an emotional attachment with the audience, he fell short. I didn't care much for his fate. I just wanted to see his mech kick ass. Mako, played by Rinko Kikuchi, likewise had a bland performance that didn't leave me empathizing with the character. The best performances came from Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Max Martini and Mana Ashida. Yes, young Mako was way more convincing than adult Mako. Although the focus of the story was on these characters, the audience was more fixated on the action so it didn't take away too much from the movie.
If you love epic fight scenes and giant robots, this movie is a must-see. Some people are already calling it the most awesome movie to ever exist, and there may be some truth to that. Pacific Rim is fantasy realization at its finest, and you'd best see it on the big screen.