Pacific Rim

This movie makes Michael Bay look bad.  For any of use who'd been excusing his Transformers movies by saying that Hollywood flicks about massive fighting robots are predestined to mediocrity, we are now officially proven wrong.  Of course there's probably a long list of directors who would look unimpressive standing next to Guillermo del Toro, the auteur from Spain who also brought us Pan's Labyrinth.

Pacific Rim is not entirely original, with elements taken from (or homage being paid to) Godzilla, and even one or two whole lines seemingly lifted from Independence day.  But with a finished product that matches the accomplishments of either one, I can't imagine anyone complaining too much.  It grants itself full summer-movie license to a ridiculous premise:  Giant alien sea monsters from another dimension are taking out our cities, starting with the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and since our current technology proves inadequate to the task of taking them down, we construct giant robots to do the job for us.  (Why a few tactical nukes wouldn't do the job much better is never addressed, but that would make for a pretty boring film so let's all just agree not to mention it.)

With talent mined from all over the entertainment ecosystem, we finally have a summer blockbuster with heart.  Top billings go to Guillermo del Toro's behind the camera direction, which imbues everything here with a visually stunning and surreal appearance, whether it's malevolent behemoths from the ocean's depths or bustling futuristic streets of Hong Kong.

Then there's Charlie Day who pivots from his borderline retarded character on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" to a highly entertaining and manic off-his-rocker scientist without missing a beat.  There's also Idris Elba who brings his steely badass intimidation factor from the Wire to this role as supreme military commander defending the Earth.  "Today we cancel the apocalypse!" he yells out in the best line of the movie.  (Note: It's not a spoiler because it's in the trailer.)

One of Japan's more popular actresses, Rinko Kikuchi, bring some talent from the other side of the Pacific as a pilot for one of the giant robots (or "jaegers" as the film calls them, a German word for hunter).  Whoever did computer affects deserves an academy award as well.  The sea monsters (or "kaiju" in the parlance of the film) will get your heart beating.  They are beautiful and terrifying, even artistic in the way they look and move.

There's some typical silliness about global warming and acid rain having made our planet hospitable to these alien invaders (have to fit a moral in somewhere, right?) but it's not nearly so hamfisted as the ecological preaching of Avatar, which also managed to be a good film.  It almost seems to take a stance from the other end of the political spectrum against government waste, as a cowardly coalition of world politicians decides to defund the robotic jaegers in favor of massive coastal walls, which prove completely ineffectual.  But it stops short of making the heads of state look too foolish, and goes back to mad scientists, simmering sexual tension and fighting aliens.  Which is not an entirely bad thing.

If you're going to see one blockbuster this summer, I would make it Pacific Rim.  It's not a sequel and there are no big names, but again, that's not entirely a bad thing.

Grade:  A-