First off, the commercials were killer. I had to see this movie. It was like rock'em sock'em robots / Gundams vs Godzilla monsters / Too freaken cool not to.
Now, I wasn't expecting a huge amount of captivating story considering what the commercials presented, but that is OK. Because the one movie pet peeve I have is the commercials are misleading. As long as I get exactly what I expected, if not more, I'll accept that.
Premise:
The story is about a lost Gipsy Danger Jaeger Pilot, Raleigh Becket [Charlie Hunnam] that is still mourning the loss of his brother years ago to a kaiju battle. He is summoned to pilot again for a final mission to destroy the rift portal where the Kaiju come out of to end the war against the beasts. The year is 2O25, humanity's last hope rests in the dying Jaeger program. However he needs a second pilot to help run the revitalized Gipsy Danger Jaeger and not just anyone will do.
The Verdict?
Overall really freaken cool. I liked it. It has its issues, but the battle scenes more than make up for its short comings. And I'm really glad they spend most of the movie beating ass rather than try to bore us with their terrible story arc.
Acting: 4/1O
The acting is by far...lifeless and dull. I really didn't feel it from the actors. When the little crying Japanese girl and the two nerds make up the bulk of good acting....you got a problem. Most of the actors are fairly unknown to me, but I guess they have been in TV and various other films from what I understand. I just didn't care for their performance. It was kind of cheesy...which brings me to scripting.
Script/Story: 3/1O
The lines in this film...are dumb. The motivations often times are dumb. And I hate to say it...but they took the story one level deeper than they should have with the reasoning behind the monster attacks. They originally stated something along the lines that the monsters came out of no where and they were hunting. Something of that nature. They end up taking it one level further [I wont explain how] and gave an explanation that really made me think...NAAAAhhhhhh, that's stupid. What else do you got? Really? That's it? That's the reason you are going with? That was poorly thought out.
Every time these guys talk, they were corny as hell. They displayed very typical tough guy attitudes that was reminiscent of GI Joe. I cringed when they had a small moment to interact with each other. Which is why I was very glad they just gave up on developing the story and just kept throwing more action scenes in. This is one of the few times I was actually more excited to see things explode than witness real story evolve.
Action: 9/1O
The action was seriously the reason I went to watch this film. It was totally ****ing sick. I loved it. The only thing that frustrated me was how difficult it was to kill the Kaiju with the current Jaegers they had. It kind of got annoying after a while. They are stabbing the living shit out of these creatures and they aren't dead yet? I joust a rhinoceros with a ten foot sword and at least after 5 good stabs I'm pretty sure hes going to slow down at least a tad. That was the only thing that bugged me. I know they were high category monsters...but still. One of them at one point manages to magically grow wings...which really just baffled me. It was unexpected and not in a good way.
Some extra neat moments for me:
What I was happy most about in this movie is there was a bit more diversity than usual. Sure the main character is a white American male that is unpredictable and ****y [typical stereotype]. But I liked how the main female character is Japanese. Its rare to see a good Asian representation that isn't meant for comedy and isn't fondled as the helpless love interest. No, she kicks ass and takes names. I was pretty excited about that. And I was really excited how their "love interest" ended. It was just right and surprisingly pleasant. I was pretty satisfied how that went. What a great handshake they had. ha.
Conclusion: Not Guillermo Del Toro's best work. Pan's Labyrinth was WAAAAAAYYYY better. Characters were a bit cardboardish, story was half-ass thought out, but the action was really killer and fun to watch the robots spank giant monsters back to the hole they crawled out of. Plus the visual effects are like a nerdgasm on screen. I seriously was so excited all the way through.
P.S. There is something after the first set of credits...so don't leave so quickly.
6.5/1O
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