4 out of 5

Director: Guillermo del Toro

While it certainly succumbs to some big and dumb blockbuster movie tropes – the kooky scientists, the rallying speech – del Toro and co-writer Travis Beacham seem to know their genre, know their influences, and know what they do and don’t want said and shown such that ‘Pacific Rim’ is totally able to overcome its moments of fluff to be the type of big and fun blockbuster we haven’t gotten in quite some time, updated to the grand scale modern effects can deliver and captured for the screen in a readable and exciting framing by a master filmmaker.  There are a couple main things ‘Rim’ does to keep the viewers properly scoped to the scale of events – something that the surface-comparable Transformers flicks (and their director Michael Bay) have never been good at.  First and foremost, it has actual characters.  While military man Idris Elba and his robot pilots Hunnam and Kikuchi may take backseats to the big action, they are given functional roles in the film and it says something that we’re not just twiddling our thumbs between fights when these characters are talking.  Their story arcs aren’t particularly original for the story structure, but they’re committed well, and acted with just the right blend of smirk and seriousness to carry it along, the script wisely avoiding over-dramatics but planting the seeds to make character decisions sensible.  Secondly: mythology.  We get a quick prologue that lays down events – human were winning with their big robots versus the big monsters, but now we’re retreating, and we still don’t know where these creatures are coming from or why.  And it’s with a straight-forwardness that our developments are delivered along the way.  There’s no need to dress it up or do a big reveal, because EVERY movie has giant destruction and massive effects now, and the twists and plot points are purposefully culled from various sources to keep it fun and timely.  Knowing our awareness of this allows our filmmakers to just get down to business of making it look good and to brush off some extra details to ground the BIG experience a little bit.  The creatures and robots have thought behind their design, and the composition of scenes are considered to make them feel weighty and massive.  Even some great movies make me a little restless at over two hours, and del Toro’s previous stab at large scale – Hellboy 2 – over-reached a bit, so there were some definite lessons learned in terms of pacing, ’cause I wasn’t bored for one moment of this.  There won’t be anything on screen that particularly surprises, but by the same token there’s so much to keep you interested and having a good time.  The definition of a great theater flick.