Giant. Robots. Fighting. Giant. Monsters. It's a mashup smash-'em-up from the mind of a child and as the description of one of the summer's hotly anticipated movies, it's an intriguing and enticing premise at that.
Pacific Rim is the story of a group of survivors in an apocalyptic world as they struggle to fight against watery demonic creatures known as
kaiju with their own weapons, massive robots known as
Jaegers. At the centre of it all is the story of two different and broken people learning to work together and heal their wounds. So, without further ado, here are my top five reasons why
Pacific Rim really is the film of the summer and why you should go see it immediately if you haven't already.
5. It's A Fairytale
Del Toro is especially entrenched in telling us his versions of fairytales -
Pan's Labyrinth is the darkest imagining of
Alice In Wonderland possible, mixed in with some traditional Grimm-style darkness and violence and the
Hellboy films have an otherworldly beauty to them that slots alongside punch-ups and apocalypses.
Pacific Rim is, arguably, a fairytale at its heart as it follows two very different but similar people on a journey from their respective traumas, overcoming their painful pasts to become heroes. All of this set against the classic backdrop of good versus evil with very solid avatars in the form of the robotic
Jaegers and the sea-demon
kaiju. Del Toro is perfect at mixing the light with the dark, making Pacific Rim a painful yet hopeful story about survivors saving the world.