Movie Review: Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim (2013)
131 minutes
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi

Grade: B

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As a kid I was a big fan of the very popular Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series. To my delight, Pacific Rim turned back the clock as I soaked up the tale that involved enormous monsters fighting gigantic robots controlled by humans. Now that’s what I’m talking about! At the helm is Guillermo del Toro, who is no stranger to the comic-book, sci-fi, and fantasy genre. With a blockbuster budget, del Toro has crafted a mainstream CGI-heavy film with a decent enough story to give it more depth than say, Transformers.

Which is the good and the bad about Pacific Rim. Certainly, the box office results weren’t as successful as the Transformers franchise. Sure, it’s unfair to compare the two since Pacific Rim is an original, high-budget action involving giant robots that isn’t already established like Transformers, but you get what I’m saying. There was something that just missed with the American audience (which only counted for 25% of the film’s worldwide gross), and that was the attempt to do more than needed.

But in my opinion, this makes a hell of a better film than any of the Transformers movies. In the not too distant future, huge sea-monsters called Kaijus are destroying major cities around the world. Governments combine their resources and fight back with giant war machines called Jaegers, that function when two humans’ brains are linked. Del Toro and Travis Beacham explore some mythology to give Pacific Rim the back-story and twists necessary, but the true triumph here is the digital effects that are second to none.

There are some story-lines involving the main characters that keep you engaged when the beasts aren’t destroying everything in its path. Specifically protagonist Raleigh Becket is one to sympathize with for losing his brother while working a Jaeger. But the big picture events outweigh any potential power between characters, even the romance between Becket and Mako Mori, his eventual Jaeger partner. The one who does make an impact and steals plenty of scenes is Charlie Day as Newton Geiszler, a scientist who studies the Kaijus and has crucial information on how to eliminate them for good. Day is able to play the underdog of the film, whether it’s being the person no one believes or the one we naturally expect to be the first killed. Using these obstacles to his advantage, Day is able to display vulnerability during a time of crisis very well here.

Pacific Rim feels like a video game, which is to its benefit for all the fanboys who love del Toro. And while everything wraps up too neatly at the end, it’s still great popcorn fun for those who love big and loud action-packed movies. But this leads to the question whether or not del Toro will continue down the path to over-sized, big-budget flicks, or if he’ll scale things back for his next sci-fi/fantasy adventure. I hope it’s the latter.

How I Met Your Mother – “Knight Vision”

Season Nine, Episode Six

Grade: B

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So we’re now 45 hours until the wedding and this is a big deal to Ted, because this is the infamous Friday night of the wedding weekend where he’ll either be hooking up with a bridesmaid or as Barney puts it, performing the “self high five, and not the cool kind.” Barney and Robin are nice enough to narrow down Ted’s options to three potentials, but Ted is quick to pick the flirtatious Cassie (the always enjoyable Anna Camp). What I love about this story-line is 1. This is exactly what Ted would do, which makes it hilarious and 2. the running Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade gag of the Knight Templar declaring Ted is making a poor choice is very well done (You chose… poorly).

Ted’s choice of Cassie starts out great when she declares that she’d rather just get the meaningless sex over with at the beginning, and then conclude the rest of the night flirting, but as the Knight Templar chimes in, it all goes downhill from there. Cassie ends up getting fired from her job, has recently had her car stolen, sees her ex-boyfriend with a date, and is getting sick with the flu. Yup, have to admit that Ted picked a stinker as much as I’d definitely pick Anna Camp out of the three girls, but as the guy Ted is he sticks it out (also trying to prove the Knight wrong). But even Cassie’s parents don’t want to deal with her, which is usually a bad sign.

Meanwhile, Lily tries to soften up the mean minister because I guess that’s something the maid of honor does? What we find out is that Robin and Barney lied about how they met each other just because the minister is so strict about who can use the church for weddings. Why do they want this specific church for the wedding? Well because it has “cute coming out the wha-zoo.” Eventually the couple comes around and is straight up with the minister, but this results in the minister dying. So good news, Barney and Robin can still get married at the church. Bad news, they need to find a new minister in two days.

Finally, the C-story consists of Marshall still riding along with Daphne. He’s trying to figure out how he’s going to break the news to Lily that he’s accepted the judgeship, putting off the move to Rome that Lily is looking forward to. Despite being called “The Convincer,” Marshall obviously needs to prepare what he has to say to let Lily down easily. Daphne lends a helping hand playing the role of Lily, but nothing seems like it’ll work out. This part of the episode is the weakest, and it’s not surprising because at this point of the season Marshall is still out of the loop from the group. As much as the writers try their best to keep him involved, it’s not working and Marshall just has to get to Farhampton now! Either that or bring back Marshall on the iPad!

Still no sign of Cristin Milioti, but at least we get to see the yellow umbrella at the train station. As Ted points at at the end of the episode, he might’ve chose poorly that night by picking Cassie, but if that choice led to meeting his wife then he chose wisely for once.

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Last but not least:

• I loved the flashbacks with the different characters in the place of the real characters’ stories: Robin knocking on Barney’s college dorm room and Ted falling for Lily at the bar.
• I also loved the scenes with Alyson Hannigan syncing to Sherri Shepherd’s voice when Daphne and Marshall are preparing for one hell of an argument.
• I wouldn’t call it a cliffhanger, but in an angry rage Daphne texted Lily of Marshall already accepting the job. It’s about time we get this story-line over with.
• Probably my favorite joke of the entire episode was the two second clip of Barney suggesting to perform Wedding at Bernie’s with the dead minister.