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.

Classically Shitty: Serpico

Nice hat.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I should make this a Classically Shitty post. Serpico is more of a stupid movie than a shitty one. They had a lot of good pieces (actors, director, true story, etc.), but couldn’t execute them in any logical fashion. Everything that happens, happens in the dumbest possible way. It’s more Classically Stupid than anything else. But then I thought, “You know what? Fuck it.” Serpico is just as Classically Shitty as everything else in this series.

The movie opens with a rip-roaring, high-octane car chase around the streets of New York City where — oh, wait, sorry, I’m thinking of some other movie. Serpico opens with the titular police officer (played by Al Pacino) being casually taken to a hospital after having been shot in the face. People learn of his wounding, and react in the most apathetic manner imaginable. “Huh? What’s that? Serpico was shot? Oh, okay. Hey, did you see the Yankees game last night?” After that, the rest of the movie is told through an extended flashback.

Frank “Paco” Serpico is an honest cop with a great nickname. Serpico is also a really a weird dude. For the first half of the movie he is working in some kind of fingerprint catalog system, and he talks in this weird, kind of nasal, kind of high-pitched voice. He literally prances around the police department like a ballerina. He spends time in the bathroom with other dudes with the lights off. When people accuse him of being gay (even though the film shows us he isn’t), he doesn’t bother to deny it. Eventually, all his hard work talking weird, dancing, and cavorting in bathrooms pays off, and he gets promoted to a new division as a “plainclothes” officer.