To say this was a bit disappointing would be an understatement, my initial thoughts were that this was just going to be another robots vs monsters action film; that was, until I found out that Guillermo del Toro was the director. This got me excited, I was really hoping to see some really good puppets and costumes as the monsters waged war against the giant robots.

Pacific Rim

But it turned out that my initial preconceptions were pretty much spot on, this was nothing more than a clichéd action film like so many more before it, it was almost exactly the same as Independence Day, the epic “humans versus aliens” film that I compare everything to it seems. The aliens invade and seem unstoppable, but then the humans find a weakness, but then the aliens find another advantage, before finally the humans through sacrifice, ingenuity, and dumb courage manage to sneak in to the alien stronghold and blow everything to smithereens using a nuclear (or thermonuclear) bomb, sounds familiar right? They even managed to communicate with the aliens directly through their brains (just like Independence Day), with the annoying scientists and the troubled heroes (a bit like Jurassic Park).

Well, at least in this one they didn’t hold the monsters and the robots back until half way through the movie, they knew what the drawcards were and put them all up there from the first minute. Although, I felt that there wasn’t enough of the Jaegers and the Kaijus, especially in well-lit scenarios, they always seemed to be fighting at night which made it hard to get a good look at the monsters. OK, so I didn’t expect Pan’s Labyrinth-depth storytelling and character development, but they could at least have provided some more jaeger vs kaiju battle scenes with actual puppets or costumes (if I’m mistaken and the costumes were actually that good, then I would be pleasantly surprised), it just seemed to be too much CGI for a del Toro film. The last point I want to make about the film is, how the hell is the Gypsy jaeger analog? They’re all built from 2015 on or something, why would anyone build anything new nowadays using analog technology? Worst Guillermo del Toro film ever, maybe, I don’t know, I haven’t seen them all, can’t we just have a Hellboy 3 or something? That would be worth watching for sure.

Picture taken from wikipedia.