Pacific Rim Photo: Kerry Hayes
Hang on to your seat, clap on your 3D glasses and prepare to be bored silly by this mega budget sci-fi from director Guillermo del Toro.
Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh and Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori, two robot pilots who fall in love and save the world.
In a tribute to video games, huge robots trade blows with leviathan-sized monsters that have been lurking beneath the sea. One by one the robots fall, against immense backdrops such as Hong Kong and Sydney.
In one scene a monster surges out of Sydney Harbour within metres of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Beckett and Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori Photo: Kerry Hayes
Pacific Rim, currently showing at Imax Darling Harbour, is not for serious moviegoers looking for a good plot or entertaining dialogue.
Moments of high drama are few and predictable, the acting is ordinary, but the businessman who makes a fortune out of selling body parts of slain monsters is quite funny.
The story begins when monstrous creatures known as Kaiju begin rising from the watery depths and a war for the survival of mankind begins. To combat the giant Kaiju, nations combine to form a fighting force of really big robots called Jaegers.
Piloted by humans and under the command of General Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba who plays Luther in the TV series of the same name and Russell “Stringer” Bell in HBO’s critically acclaimed show The Wire) the robots are destroyed by the Kaiju monsters.
In a last ditch attempt to save the world the all-nations coalition pull the plug on the robot operations, opting instead for a giant wall to keep out the monsters.
Idris Elba as Stacker Pentecost & Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Beckett Photo: Kerry Hayes
But the general will have none of it and he takes off his military uniform and forms the “resistance”. We are not told how such an expensive operation could be maintained without the financial backing of the nations involved, but we are watching big slippery monsters capable of destroying all before them, and we don’t care about details like that.
All the actors are cute and extremely photogenic, except two wacky scientists, a cripple and Dr Newton Geiszler a little nerdy bloke in glasses, who work out where the monsters come from and what makes them tick.
The most fun to watch are the Kaiju, meticulously designed multi-headed, multi-tentacled creatures with two brains.
This one is definitely for lovers of special effects who will enjoy these on the big Imax screen in 3D, and for fans of video games and Japanese anime.
