10 Reasons Why You Must Watch Pacific Rim

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As if you didn€™t know, Guillermo del Toro€™s heavily anticipated monster epic, Pacific Rim, opened in theatres last weekend, telling the 2020-set story of humanity€™s fight against the deadly Kaiju, using their own giant humanoid mechas. Pacific Rim is a hugely ambitious project, and one which fans have been salivating over for some time, thanks to the director€™s monstrous credentials and the seemingly perfect fit for the genre.

To celebrate the release of del Toro€™s epic monster movie, here€™s 10 reasons why you need to watch one of this year€™s biggest and most ambitious blockbusters of the year, Pacific Rim.

10. Mechs. Punching Things

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Of course, audiences have witnessed huge gargantuan robots demolishing each other in Michael Bay€™s dismal Transformers movies, but in Pacific Rim audiences get something remarkably different. Instead of hulking giant messes of CGI and dull robotic A.I., Pacific Rim provides viewers with an interesting angle: manned machines, known as mecha.

Huge mechs have always been severely popular in Japanese anime (Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion), and Pacific Rim can ultimately be considered as a live-action mecha anime. It has all the classic tropes of one, with the vengeful pilot, deus ex machina plot devices and of course, the surprisingly strong, charismatic male lead. Acting as humanity€™s last hope of survival, the mechs come in the form of five different €˜Jaegers€™ in Pacific Rim. From various countries, they are all armed with an impressive arsenal and each Jaeger has its own unique fighting style, brought to life by the use of two pilots or more. Gipsy Danger, the American Jaeger, is the main focus of the movie. Designed with a faded blue paint job and romanticised decals, Gipsy is armed with a wonderfully impressive plasma cannon. Watching Gipsy obliterate the Kaiju is a sure delight to see, as the pilot€™s sheer unpredictably leads to some truly fantastic fight scenes. Thankfully, del Toro provides viewers with a selection of different Jaegers, and another favourite is Australia€™s decommissioned Crimson Typhoon, an agile mech with a fighting style that matches one of a dirty brawler. Piloted by a father and his cocky son, Crimson Typhoon is a formidable force to be reckoned with. The Jaegers are incredible works of art, and with the help of ILM, they€™re brought to life perfectly. The fight scenes throughout Pacific Rim are exemplary, with a 20-minute Hong Kong brawl being one of the stand-out moments of the movie. Unlike Transformers, viewers can actually tell what€™s happening during the destructive conflicts, as the Jaeger stand strong against the Kaiju.
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Comic book store employee, writing about all the things I love: movies, comic books and wrasslin'. It's still real to me, damn it.