Jaeger Bombs!!!: Pacific Rim review

This movie was the bomb, that's where Jaeger bomb comes from. ;)

     This movie is what summer movies are supposed to be about, big crazy special effects, mixed with some comic relief, followed up by a huge clash battle at the end.  It has all the ingredients of old school Robotech, Voltron, Godzilla plot lines my generation (generation X) grew up with, even those that grew up with Power Rangers the generation after me will find something to enjoy in this film, all the good stuff from what I just mentioned without the cheesi-ness.

     I know Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy fame is supposed to be the protagonist in this film but I  found myself to be drawn to Idris Elba's character more as I found his back story most interesting.  Most of the main characters have a good back story drawn up for them so I'm sure you'll find your favorites as you watch it.  That's enough about the human actors though, lets get to why we really want to see this movie...the mechanized tank robots and the crazy large monsters!

     The star machine is the Gypsy Danger, and its abilities seem generic enough to fit the bill of being the protagonist driven mechanized robot.  It had the heroic blue color, the pilots were a man and woman, and seemed to be a jack of all trades in comparison to the other machines.  The machines are known as "Jaegers" and they were pretty much the monsters built by man to fight the monsters from the sea known as "Kaijus".  There are three other Jaegers in the movie along with the Gypsy Danger and seemed to have more specialized abilities.  The Chinese Jaeger was known as Crimson Typhoon and had 3 arms, was red and very agile in the one battle we see it in.  The name of the machine seemed to come from the 3 armed attack formation the three pilots used to control the 3 arms and slice up a Kaiju quickly.  Australia had a Jaeger called Stryker who's unique ability seemed to be speed and is the front running robot for the plan they have in the film to beat the Kaijus for good.  The Russian Jaeger was a pretty awesome power house robot known as Cherno- Alpha and was one of the original production Jaegers according to the films story and had a successful kill rate due to its power and jack-hammer fists.  If I had a complaint about the film its that we did not see enough of these other Jaegers and beasts in battle to know what they were all capable of.

    The monsters when shown in daylight scenes seemed pretty menacing and enormous, more than the Jaegers at times and the audio for these things was pretty good, I swore I heard a little Godzilla in one during the intro scenes explaining where they come from but someone would have to verify if that was an Easter egg or not.  One known as Knife Head looked awfully familiar from the the Godzilla film days too so you can  see Guillermo Del Toro got a lot of influences from those classics.  They varied in size too and one even transforms to adapt to the battles as the Jaegers start getting some wins against them, they sprayed acid, emit EMP bursts and fly at times.  The special effects for these beasts are sure to impress you when you watch these things fight.

    Highly recommendable film, especially for those that are in the generation X profile mentioned at the beginning of this.  If these actors weren't well known enough before this they will be now, I'd see this before I watch Adam Sandler hang out with all his buddies from his stand up comedy circuit days in Grown Ups 2.