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Pacific rim mind meld1/7/2024 The creatures, known as Kaiju (Japanese for “big monster”), begin coming with terrifying rapidity. In the near future, a giant space time rift opens somewhere deep in the Pacific that allows these enormous, horrifying creatures to emerge out of the depths and wreak havoc on populated coastal cities. The story is straight out of the Japanese monster movies of the ’50s and ’60s. Like iconic Japanese children’s filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, his films are filled with the etched details of his young, impressionable mind, and it is in those precious minutiae that his action films very often rise above their genres into something a good deal more interesting and emblematic. Scale, from impossibly towering creatures and robots to the minute cultural impacts of their conflict, is the overarching thematic element in this wildly entertaining action flick.ĭel Toro, whose previous work includes the comic book-based Hellboy pictures as well as the sublime Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, is an extremely gifted visionary artist who, even in his more adult-minded fare, never loses his sense of childhood imagination, thrilling and terrifying. It is this sense of peculiar scale - from much larger-than-life behemoths to that tiny comic detail - that director Guillermo del Toro infuses in this film, a kind of chaotic whirl of different action genres and graphic novel components. The resultant titanic force then comes to rest, softly tippling the steel-ball perpetual motion machine sitting inconspicuously on the desk, causing the balls to gently knock back and forth. ![]() The hand rips through a giant commercial high-rise, laying waste to everything in its path until it comes to a hard stop right at the edge of someone’s long-deserted cubicle. At one point during the combat, the monster drives the robot off-balance enough so that it has to reach a massive, mechanical hand behind itself in order to keep from toppling over. The two combatants trade enormous blows, raining down debris over the ruined, littered streets. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.High above the shattered streets of Hong Kong, a giant, reptilian monster does vicious battle with an equally massive robot, helmed by two human beings situated in the head of the machine. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Kenneth Turan reviews movies for MORNING EDITION and also for the Los Angeles Times. In a summer crowded with meaningless explosions, del Toro is the real deal. He's also fussed with thousands of small details to make the film's gritty, dirty world as lived-in as possible. He's made the monsters and the havoc they wreak look real. But seeing it on screen will knock you out.ĭel Toro is such a visual director, he's known for placing his production office inside the art department. TURAN: Clearly, we're not talking about subtle readings of the human condition on a par with "The Remembrance of Things Past." "Pacific Rim" is very much set in comic book-pulp science fiction territory. IDRIS ELBA: (as Stacker) Today, at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. TURAN: But as the Kaiju change and adapt and become close to unstoppable, the world's best hope turns out to be a ragtag bunch of pilots lead by the ultra-fierce Stacker, played by Idris Elba. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Initiating neural handshake in 15 seconds. TURAN: Humans create weaponized robots called Jaegers so huge, it takes two people who can execute a kind of mind-meld called the drift to pilot them. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Cutting a three-mile-wide path of destruction through the city of San Francisco. TURAN: Strange and awful giant beasts called Kaiju, intent on destroying everything in their path, come up from the depths. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: San Francisco has now become a war zone. "Pacific Rim" begins with a fissure between two tectonic plates in the Pacific, opening a portal between dimensions. He's a fantasy visionary with an outsized imagination and a fanatical specificity, and the results are spectacular. But director Guillermo del Toro is more than a filmmaker. ![]() ![]() KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE: A plot where aliens face off against robots may sound like too much of the same old thing. Another movie opening is "Pacific Rim." Critic Kenneth Turan says it has plenty of explosions and special effects, but he says there's actually more to it than most of the other blockbusters this summer.
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