The review embargo for Pacific Rim finally lifted yesterday, and a consensus on the film has quickly been building, amassing a rock-solid 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. You can read my positive review of the film
here, where I note that while it certainly succeeds in its aim of delivering a visually stunning, outrageous Hollywood blockbuster, it's also heavily qualified by a litany of issues - primarily scripting-based - which hold it back from being a classic of the monster movie genre. The lesson coming out of Pacific Rim is that no matter how strongly a film appears to appeal to your fanboy sensibilities, that doesn't make it a great movie. Is Pacific Rim going to do good geek business? Probably, but how able you are to forgive the movie's countless flaws will largely account for how much you enjoy it. Here are 9 problems that will p*ss you off about Pacific Rim...
9. It's Goofy As Hell
Many will argue that it's part and parcel of a film about giant mechas fighting giant sea monsters, but Pacific Rim is an extremely goofy movie, far more so than I had ever anticipated coming from the mind of Guillermo del Toro. Some reviewers have compared the film to a feature-length episode of Power Rangers, and perhaps the most prominent way it reflects the classic children's show is with its similarly corny sense of humour, aimed at the younger audience that del Toro has said he is also trying to appeal to. This silliness comes largely by way of Charlie Day's Dr. Geizler and Burn Gorman's Dr. Gottlieb; their banter is inconsistent, ranging from cringe-inducing to pretty funny on occasion. However, the pantomime-like tone of these comic exchanges, exaggerated and larger-than-life, becomes pretty irritating after a while, and you'll likely need to be a child to fully appreciate it.