Pacific Rimjob

Let’s put on our serious faces.

Pacific Rimjob is a 2013 movie directed by Guillermo “I’ve only ever directed one good movie”* del Toro. And guess what? That one good movie is not this one. This is absolutely one of the worst summer tentpole movies I have ever seen. It’s kind of like an old man who has lost control of his anal sphincter. He tries to hold it in as long as possible, but no longer how long he holds out, he’s going to end up covered in shit.

It’s the near future, and giant monsters from another dimension (dubbed Kaiju) are attacking Earth. Humanity quickly develops giant robots that are used to fight the Kaiju, thus ensuring the safety of our planet. This is essentially the setup to every giant robot anime ever created. But unlike those anime, Pacific Rimjob stopped trying right after it came up with a premise.

Del Toro and writer Travis Beacham were so pumped that they were getting to make a live-action giant robot anime, they forgot to write an actual story for their movie. Virtually nothing happens beyond a skeleton of a plot that lumbers along from one CGI action sequence to the next. The CGI is quite good, in fact, I found myself thinking it looked pretty good, but good CGI is no substitute for plot. Without a compelling story or interesting characters (this film has neither), all the CGI in the world can’t help.

It’s just like a generic anime.

The giant robots (dubbed Jaegers) require two pilots to make them works, because of some left brain-right brain technobabble bullshit. It’s really a plot contrivance for what happens later. The best pilot ever, Charlie Hunnam, is saddled with the emotional pain of seeing his brother die in the middle of a battle against a Kaiju. He goes into hiding, only to later be recruited by Stringer Bell.

Hunnam is a terrible actor. He is an Englishman giving one of the most unconvincing American accents I’ve ever heard. Plenty of Americans have given equally bad English accents, that’s true, but that doesn’t make this right. There was absolutely no reason for his character to be American. He should have used his natural accent, and at least turned in a halfway decent performance. He spends so much time chewing scenery and stumbling over American pronunciations, he doesn’t have any time to actually act.

I’m terrified.

Stringer Bell plays the hilariously named Stacker Pentecost. His job is to fight against a mountain of cliches. In the new world order, the populace has suddenly decided that the Jaegers, who have saved the planet time and time again, are no longer relevant and scrap the Jaeger program. Bell decides to bring together the remaining Jaegers and their pilots and SHOW THE WORLD THAT THE OLD WAYS ARE THE BEST AND YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD ROBOT DOWN HOORAH YIPPIE KI YAY MOTHERFUCKER DYNOMITE!

So, Bell recruits the stereotypical international group of misfits to pilot the remaining Jaegers, including Hunnam. His new co-pilot is a Japanese woman played by Rinko Kikuchi. Bell is Kikuchi’s surrogate father, and he refuses to let her pilot. So, we get the usual huffing and hawing, temper tantrums, and I’LL SHOW YOU I’M THE BEST type of bullshit you’ve seen a million times before. Kikuchi eventually gets to pilot the Jaeger with Hunnam.

It’s Always Sunny in Hong Kong?

Meanwhile, Charlie Day plays a mad scientist who cerebrally connects with the Kaiju, and Ron Perlman shows up as a black market guy to… do something… because he is del Toro’s BFF. The side characters are there purely for comic relief, as if the acting and story weren’t already comical enough. They cavort around in the background, involved in some crazy antics, until the movie forgets about them so it can gear up for the big finale.

In the finale, Bell ZOMG COMES OUT OF RETIREMENT ZOMG for one final battle. He and his partner (whoever that was – they weren’t important) pilot one Jaeger, and Hunnam and Kikuchi pilot the other. Spoilers: everyone else is dead at this point. They discover a dimensional gateway between Earth and the Kaiju planet in the ocean. So, they go underwater, fight some monsters, and nuke the gateway. Naturally, the nuke destroys the gateway, because dimensional gateways are susceptible to weapons, everyone knows that.

The movie sputters to an end with the planet saved. OH MAI GAWD THE JAEGERS SAVED US ALL I GUESS WE WERE WRONG AND WE SHOULD BRING THE JAEGER PROGRAM BACK AFTER ALL (durp).

Fuck this movie. Fuck it so hard. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Verdict: Shitty

* Pan’s Labyrinth