OVERALL: Of course I like this movie! It’s got giant monsters, giant robot suits, and they do BATTLE while saluting Godzilla. What’s not to like?

POINTS: Did I mention the giant monsters and robot suit? This is one of those movies where you just prepare to have fun and go “Oh wow cool!” throughout. Look whether you think the movie is good or not, you have never seen anything like it and that makes it worth seeing.

Plus it is good to see a movie with many different colors and nationalities. The movie was about the world coming together to fight monsters and it is good that we got to see that on the screen. Granted there were a lot of white people, but still, I liked it!

PITFALLS: Look, I love science fiction/fantasy and I am great at suspending my disbelief. However, well, I kept thinking that the technology involved to create the Jeagers, the giant robot suits created to fight the Kaiju, the giant monsters, would just be too expensive and time consuming to develop and create. Part of me kept thinking “Why don’t you just use really powerful missiles and shoot them down the Kaiju throats?” Now you know why I didn’t make this movie. 😉 There is something just totally satisfying about watching giant robots battle giant monsters. Seriously. I could watch that all day. Hush, Rational Self I say, just enjoy the show, ok?

Plus read Female Characters below.

FEMALE CHARACTER(S): Now Guillermo del Toro, director and screenwriter of Pacific Rim, is cool. Very cool. He is a fabulous, twisted vision of fantasy and can make it come to life. Just see Pan’s Labyrinth or the Hellboy movies to know how fascinating his imagination is. He doesn’t like simpering women and wants his women to be adult, strong human beings. Of course I like him for that!! So I was extra excited when I read this article posted in The Mary Sue: Guillermo del Toro Talks About Pacific Rim’s Formidable Female Lead And The Lack of a Love Story.

Yeah. Uh no. That’s not what actually happened on screen. First our heroine, Mako Mori played by Rinko Kikuchi, often came across as child like. She would look down a lot. She also seems to be attracted to the male lead and makes a fool out of herself by accidentally trying to enter his rooms. This is a trope from rom-coms, which I loathe. Also in the end the body language of the male and female lead is not one of friends. It is one of future lovers. Now it’s ok, that they fall in love/are attracted to one another, but let’s not kid ourselves. Mako and our hero Raleigh Becket, played by Charlie Hunnam, unwittingly fall into “romance stereotypes.

Another problem is that the screen is filled with men. Yes there are other women Jeager pilots and a few other women on screen, but so many of the supporting roles could have been played by women. Same lines, same motivations, played by women. That would have ensured lack of romance and given women more to identify with on screen.

Still PROPS to del Toro for wanting better women characters. Huzzah!! He just needs to work on the delivery. Keep going Guillermo!!

CULTURAL PITFALL(S): See Female Character(s) and Points.

HIGH POINT(S): I LOVE it when the two Jeager pilots hook-up together and MOVE together operating the Jeager. Folks I wanted to see MORE of that. I wanted so much more time watching the pilots move together. Plus I wanted the pilots space to be designed so that one of them wasn’t partially hidden from view. There wasn’t enough of this for me, but when they showed it I just jumped for joy! (In my head of course. ;)) Plus just watching the incredible fight scenes between the Jeagers and Kaiju, well goodness, if you don’t enjoy that go watch some depressing drama and leave me to squee.

Oh oh! And then there is one scene where a Jeager hit a Kaiju with a BATTLESHIP!!! You bet this makes my inner little girl happy happy happy!!!!

Idris Elba. Folks, let’s take a moment to salute a man who is a great actor AND has star quality charisma. He, like Jennifer Lawrence, comes off of the screen. He dominates scenes because he is IDRIS ELBA. If he were a Dungeons and Dragons character his charisma would be 30+. That’s a star.

So when Idris Elba’s character, Stacker Pentacost, says “Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!” Well that just makes my day. 🙂

Cute Dog. One of the characters has a big bulldog in the movie. The dog follows him around. Hubby and I LOVE that dog.

Jeager Pilots Moving In Unison. I. Love. This. Could be the dancer in me. More, more, more, more more! Please have more of this in Pacific Rim 2, ok?

BECHDEL TEST (Website): 1 of 3. To be honest, I’m surprised it got this high of a rating.

IMDB:  Pacific Rim (2013)

OFFICIAL MOVIE WEBSITE:  Pacific Rim (Warner Bros.)

DVD/BLU-RAY WORTHY: Of course! Good grief I own the deluxe package. 🙂

 LION PAW PRINTS:  3 of 5. Ya’ just can’t stop watching and it is good.

Watch the Pacific Rim trailer below to see some of the things I love about the movie.

See what I mean? 🙂