shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2013-07-21 10:01 pm
shallowness) wrote2013-07-21 10:01 pm
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Pacific Rim
I couldn’t see it until yesterday, but I managed not to get spoiled beyond that fandom seemed to be enjoy it. As did I.
Going in, I was sure that a Guillermo Del Toro film about giant robots versus giant alien beasts would avoid many of the pitfalls of, say, a Michael Bay film about alien giant robots versus alien giant robots. I was wildly excited to see Rinko Kikuchi, who first impressed in Babel and then was Bang Bang in The Brothers Bloom.
What I really appreciated was that the film never forgot that it was meant to be FUN. I spent a lot of time just grinning at the fact that I was getting all these B-movie thrills. I haven’t really watched any Godzilla films, but I saw bits pilfered from Independence Day, the Blade Runner referencing and just lots of fun sci-fi tropes (I went “hive mind” long before Hannibal Cho had to point it out to the genius boffin. Also mind melding via the drift to operate the Jaegers!!!).
And I did need such genre savviness sometimes to work out what was going on, because the sound mix wasn’t great, though I liked the music. I haven’t seen enough of Idris Elba to know if he does this all the time, but a lot of his performance was about being fairly quiet and then VERY SHOUTY.
At the heart of the film was Charlie Hunnum (possibly even outcharming Henry Cavill, certainly equalling the abs to marvel at) as our hero Beckett with his angsty baggage and scrappy willingness to break orders. And as one or two accent wobbles highlighted, he’s yet another Brit playing an all-American hero.
I loved the chemistry between his Raleigh Becket and Kikuchi’s Mako Mori – from the early interactions, he was playing it like ‘Oh, you’re awesome’ and yes, yes she was. The fighting as foreplay, er, testing for physical compatibility was a gift, after her bluntness, and MIND MELDING and respect. There was even literal female gazing!
Her revenge arc and relationship with the Marshall were great – her reliving of her memory of Tokyo was probably the most moving scene for me (also does del Toro have a thing for bobs?) I did wish Raleigh had tried speaking to her in Japanese, building on the moment where he showed he could speak it when they first met. Shame that that ended up being tokenism, although I suppose speaking English would have been a better way to snap her out of the past.
I was disappointed that her role diminished a lot towards the end of the film because of the need for Raleigh to play hero and the surrounding plot to work out.
Like most of this summer’s blockbusters, the film didn’t pass the Bechdel test, and I can’t see good reason. I liked the shift to it being the countries surrounding the rift, so all the stuff about us all coming together as Earthlings to fight the alien threat rang as false as in ID4. But even so, there were a lot of broad shouldered blonde guys about. Because I haven’t seen Hunnum in anything, really, before, I didn’t know which of the brothers he was at first. But even if they were so insistent on the father-son, mano-a-mano dynamics, the ops guy, the scientists and even Cho could have been female without touching all that stuff.
Having said that, even though he was an idiot about some things, I loved Newton, was very amused by his squabbling with Gottlieb (and Gorman doing comedy is a good new look) – and by all of the comedy, actually, like the jab at toy spin-offs.
The film wasn’t really trying to be deep and meaningful, but it did realise that we needed to care about these characters and what they were going through emotionally, and it succeeded at that, while also giving the whizz, bangs and wallops.
Trailers of films that I want to see: The Wolverine ‘s reminded me that I am probably never going to shake off my movieverse Rogue/Wolverine feelings and that I need to rewatch Wolverine. I mean, I don’t know if I really NEED to to get the new film, but in my head, I do.
Gravity showed off a bravura scene. I wanted to see it anyway because of the people involved.
RED 2 may be the best action film this summer in terms of having several female characters do meaty stuff on it. I’m pretty excited about it.
Going in, I was sure that a Guillermo Del Toro film about giant robots versus giant alien beasts would avoid many of the pitfalls of, say, a Michael Bay film about alien giant robots versus alien giant robots. I was wildly excited to see Rinko Kikuchi, who first impressed in Babel and then was Bang Bang in The Brothers Bloom.
What I really appreciated was that the film never forgot that it was meant to be FUN. I spent a lot of time just grinning at the fact that I was getting all these B-movie thrills. I haven’t really watched any Godzilla films, but I saw bits pilfered from Independence Day, the Blade Runner referencing and just lots of fun sci-fi tropes (I went “hive mind” long before Hannibal Cho had to point it out to the genius boffin. Also mind melding via the drift to operate the Jaegers!!!).
And I did need such genre savviness sometimes to work out what was going on, because the sound mix wasn’t great, though I liked the music. I haven’t seen enough of Idris Elba to know if he does this all the time, but a lot of his performance was about being fairly quiet and then VERY SHOUTY.
At the heart of the film was Charlie Hunnum (possibly even outcharming Henry Cavill, certainly equalling the abs to marvel at) as our hero Beckett with his angsty baggage and scrappy willingness to break orders. And as one or two accent wobbles highlighted, he’s yet another Brit playing an all-American hero.
I loved the chemistry between his Raleigh Becket and Kikuchi’s Mako Mori – from the early interactions, he was playing it like ‘Oh, you’re awesome’ and yes, yes she was. The fighting as foreplay, er, testing for physical compatibility was a gift, after her bluntness, and MIND MELDING and respect. There was even literal female gazing!
Her revenge arc and relationship with the Marshall were great – her reliving of her memory of Tokyo was probably the most moving scene for me (also does del Toro have a thing for bobs?) I did wish Raleigh had tried speaking to her in Japanese, building on the moment where he showed he could speak it when they first met. Shame that that ended up being tokenism, although I suppose speaking English would have been a better way to snap her out of the past.
I was disappointed that her role diminished a lot towards the end of the film because of the need for Raleigh to play hero and the surrounding plot to work out.
Like most of this summer’s blockbusters, the film didn’t pass the Bechdel test, and I can’t see good reason. I liked the shift to it being the countries surrounding the rift, so all the stuff about us all coming together as Earthlings to fight the alien threat rang as false as in ID4. But even so, there were a lot of broad shouldered blonde guys about. Because I haven’t seen Hunnum in anything, really, before, I didn’t know which of the brothers he was at first. But even if they were so insistent on the father-son, mano-a-mano dynamics, the ops guy, the scientists and even Cho could have been female without touching all that stuff.
Having said that, even though he was an idiot about some things, I loved Newton, was very amused by his squabbling with Gottlieb (and Gorman doing comedy is a good new look) – and by all of the comedy, actually, like the jab at toy spin-offs.
The film wasn’t really trying to be deep and meaningful, but it did realise that we needed to care about these characters and what they were going through emotionally, and it succeeded at that, while also giving the whizz, bangs and wallops.
Trailers of films that I want to see: The Wolverine ‘s reminded me that I am probably never going to shake off my movieverse Rogue/Wolverine feelings and that I need to rewatch Wolverine. I mean, I don’t know if I really NEED to to get the new film, but in my head, I do.
Gravity showed off a bravura scene. I wanted to see it anyway because of the people involved.
RED 2 may be the best action film this summer in terms of having several female characters do meaty stuff on it. I’m pretty excited about it.