4. So That Jaegar Just Punched That Kaiju... Right?
There's a line of dialogue in Pacific Rim I quite liked: Raleigh and Mako are about to duel; their goal is not to beat the other, but to see how well they can work together and anticipate each other's moves, and Raleigh says to Mako, "It's not a fight. It's a dialogue." It's a great line, but it's an even better summation of what del Toro can accomplish as a filmmaker. In his movies, the story doesn't stop when the action starts. There's still a dialog occurring between the characters. But in his first attempt at orchestrating full CGI battles, something about del Toro's gifts as an action director get a little lost in the translation. The two practical fights between humans in the movie reminded me that del Toro can choreograph and film action scenes like few other directors. I had a clear understanding of spatial relationships and who did what to who. But why isn't that same clarity happening during the Jaegar/kaiju fights? Pacific Rim features some of the best CGI I've ever seen - especially in making you believe that the mechs and monsters have real weight and impact. But as great as the graphics are, I couldn't always tell what was happening in the monster fights. I wonder how much of this rests on del Toro and how much on ILM, who are used to operating in the current cinematic language for action scenes. The monster designs and art direction are equal to del Toro's previous films. I'm just curious why he didn't follow the same instincts that have established him as a grand composer of action and suspense. Still, watching a giant robot walk up to a giant monster dragging a tanker ship like a club is the coolest thing I've seen in years. The only thing cooler than that would be to have Gipsy Danger use its rocket-powered arm on a kaiju to deliver the most powerful "purple nurple" in all of human/kaiju history.