2013 was a time of change for the film industry. Disney had a license to print money with its Marvel Cinematic Universe, every other studio was looking to set up its own tentpole franchise–RIP Dark Universe you wonderful ego trip of a project–and a cold war between streaming platforms was just around the corner. The age of the original blockbuster was coming to an end, as Hollywood’s love affair with sequels, reboots, and remakes was about to make front-page news.
Enter Pacific Rim, a $190 million love letter to anime and kaiju movies that went down swinging at the box office after it released on 12 July 2013 in North America (and 16 August in South Africa). Facing stiff competition from–checks notes, are you kidding me, Grown Ups 2 and Despicable Me 2?–Guillermo del Toro’s mecha masterpiece scratched an itch for giant robot action that injected a healthy dose of quality storytelling and worldbuilding into the mix. Sure, Michael Bay’s chaos-fueled Transformers films had been raking in hundreds of millions since 2007, but Pacific Rim made you actually care for the people inside of each titanic bipedal line of defense.
A decade later, Pacific Rim still stands as a first-class masterpiece of action and hell yeah moments, one that’s anchored by an incredible cast and artistic direction that is peak del Toro. With a main event roster that includes Idris Elba, two Charlies of the Hunnam and Dary variety, Ron Perlman, and Rinko Kikuchi, Pacific Rim was the closest thing to a live-action anime adaptation that wouldn’t make you roll your eyes in cringe. And clearly, Hollywood wasn’t ready for it.
That’s not to say that Pacific Rim was a flop; quite the contrary. It did a respectable $411 million during its global box office run, lasting 10 weeks at the US box office before it dropped out of the top 10 in that region. Around the world, it did markedly better, eventually leading to a forgettable sequel and a Netflix animated series that looked like it was produced on a budget that would make the North Korean propaganda division balk.
The strange truth here is that Pacific Rim never needed more than just a single film. It’s perfection in 171 minutes – a gorgeous middle finger to the tropes of Hollywood that is shoved into your face with elbow-rocket power. It’s a macho celebration of kicking ass with drift-powered tag team talent behind the boot, effortlessly charming leads, and Perlman stealing the show whenever he’s in the frame. Some people will tell you that Pacific Rim doesn’t do its characters justice, but those people are idiots, and as a licensed Pacific Rim Defense Attorney, I’m here to say otherwise.
Sure, every character is there to fill an archetypal role, but del Toro commits to this idea with his cast, setting the film in a binary world of good vs evil. Alien invaders want to muscle humanity off of their planet? Good luck, get bent, and stick around for the festive season’s beatings as each actor owns their role. Whether it’s Idris Elba flexing the power of a thousand pissed-off school headmasters as Stacker Pentecost; Charlie Hunnam and his impossible abs delivering growling exposition drops; or Charlie Day’s mad science running amok, everyone has a part to play in Pacific Rim. And they do so with a gung-ho attitude of pitch-perfect casting.
One of Pacific Rim’s greatest achievements is that it tells you just enough; spends the perfect amount of time setting up its world; and actually provides context for the motivations behind each character. You might have questions, of course. For example, you might want to know why humanity doesn’t just build a ring of underwater titans powered by the blood of Mike Tyson to punch the teeth out of every Kaiju that dares to pop its head through the rift, instead of allowing action figure collectors to run humanity’s last line of defense?
At this point, when it comes to major Pacific Rim queries like the above, let me remind you to please just shut up. Big robot punches monster. That’s all you need to know, and with that key plot point cemented, del Toro delivers on the premise with some of the best action ever to be whipped out of a CGI studio. Pacific Rim is a gorgeous apocalypse of anarchy – every frame dripping with del Toro’s signature style and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro’s eye for detail.
Not a single action is wasted here, whether it be the plasma discharge of a cannon ripping Kaiju flesh from bone, or something as simple as a Jaeger fist setting a Newton’s Cradle in motion. Pacific Rim wears its love for mecha anime on its titanium sleeve, and once the film starts dropping Jaegers into the Hong Kong harbor, it hits its stride. Powered by Ramin Djawadi’s heavy metal soundtrack–which sounds like it was purposefully designed to kill anyone who owned a Roy Orbison CD–Pacific Rim’s battles are hard-hitting titanium tussles against nature’s deadliest genetically engineered monstrosities. Jaegers fall, kaiju jaws are broken in brutal fashion, and ship owners hope that “my oil tanker was used as a makeshift baseball bat” is covered by their insurance in these mega brawls.
And yet, it’s the humanity behind Pacific Rim that keeps eyes glued to the screen, and hearts beating nervously as the losses begin to pile up. There’s a sincerity and charm to the people inside each Jaeger, individuals under an immense amount of pressure. They’re fallible, flawed beings, all of which makes for some emotionally heavy scenes as you drift into the psyche of each pilot, and join the support crew of the Shatterdome for humanity’s final stand.
It’s these moments of people, not soldiers, that help turn Pacific Rim into a true blockbuster experience. That pure-hearted passion and respect stands the test of time, and as an isolated experience that is focused only on the story in front of it, and isn’t concerned with clumsily wedging in some material for a possible sequel, Pacific Rim stands tall with 200 tons of awesome fun.