Monsters! Coming to a theater near you…
Pacific Rim is a movie about Giant robots trying to save the world from giant monsters. It might be about a few more things but giant robots and monsters are trump cards. Of course it will be silly. Of course I will be first in line.
It doesn’t hurt that Oscar winning director, Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) directed the film but, honestly, even if he didn’t I’d probably see the film anyway. Did I say probably? I meant definitely. Did I say film? I meant movie. Something as nonsensical as Pacific Rim cannot be called a film. Rather it lives and breathes fire in the pulpy realm of movies. B movies. As in big, bodacious and bombastic. And I say it’s about time.
You say Michael Bay has made a living making movies like this. Not true. Why? Because there are no monsters in Michael Bay films. Just robots and stupid people. And while Pacific Rim features colossal robots it’s the monsters that appeal to me.
I’m sorry Michael but robots are toys…
Monsters that emerge from a crater beneath the sea no less. Not since the Godzilla franchise have we had legitimate monsters wreaking havoc on the silver screen. Nasty aliens yes. And predators and giant sharks and dragons. Those by the shit ton. But no goddam monsters.
Until now.
In the gaudy, tacky awesome tradition of Japanese movie monsters, Del Toro is bringing them back. They’re even called Kaiju, which, in Japanese means “amphibious beings from another dimension.” According to a further definition I found on a fan boy website Kaiju “are extremely hostile and toxic creatures seemingly designed with the sole intention to wipe out humankind.”
“We’re gonna need a bigger robot.” (image from Pacific Rim)
Whatever the definition they are definitely not robots. To me robots are like mummies. They are only sort of cool. In other words they are not scary. Del Toro knows this, which is why he made his robots the “good guys.” The bad guys are the monsters.
Look, no one over 12 is likely going to find these giant sea monsters truly frightening. No more than Godzilla and his crazy rubber-suited brethren. Yet, Kaiju do not have identifiable motives, which makes them at least potentially scary. While the Japanese may have had an agenda when they created Godzilla (a result of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima), he (actually an it because it had a Son of Godzilla) basically just wanted to step on Tokyo. That’s why he/she is so cool. That’s why Godzilla was/is King of all Monsters.
You tell ‘em, King!
That’s also why I’m so excited about Pacific Rim. We haven’t had a contender to Godzilla’s throne in decades. (The remake starring Matthew Broderick gets points for trying but doesn’t really count because, among other things, it starred Matthew Broderick. Lame!)
Despite the above analysis, some of you might not get why a grown man is so interested in giant monsters. I got nothing for you. I can only tell you that when the big dumb robots in Pacific Rim go up against the big dumb monsters (and invariably defeat them) I for one am rooting for the monsters.
