Monday, July 15, 2013

F This Movie! - Pacific Rim

Patrick and JB are canceling the apocalypse.



Download this episode here. (29.8 MB)

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Also discussed this episode: An American Romance (1944), Games (1967), The Heat (2013), The Prowler (1981), The Bay (2012), Grown Ups 2 (2013)

17 comments:

  1. Having seen Fistful of Yen in Kentucky Fried Movie before I saw Enter the Dragon, way back in my teens, I can confirm JB's theory that a good parody can be funny on it's own. Of course it does get even funnier after you see the original and get all the references.

    God, how I loved that Pacific Rim dispensed with the origin story in 10 minutes or so.

    The blandness of Hunman (who by all accounts is quite good and NOT bland in Sons of Anarchy) reminds me of the effective use of Casper Von Dien's blandness in Starship Troopers. I'm not saying it's intentional but it kind of works that way for me.

    JB, I totally saw a romance between Pentecost and Mako for the first bits as well.

    My god, that transition into Mako's memories actually brought tears to my eyes. Just a beautiful, heartrending piece of work.

    Crispin Glover? Don't mind me, I thought the British guy was being played by Mads Mikkelsen for a few moments.

    The acid spit gets used twice. Once against the Russians in the water and once in the city, which is dodged and hits a building.

    Overall, I liked the movie a lot. It delivered what I wanted, had a few problems that I could hand wave at and I had a good time. Not great, but a fun experience.

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  2. Glad to see Rinko Kikuchi put in another good performance. She seems to add quite a bit to her roles, I really liked her in Norwegian Wood (2010), A Taste for Tea (2004), and At River's Edge (2011).

    Also glad to hear you guys generally liked the film. I have not seen it yet and all I was hoping for from Pacific Rim was that it would be an entertaining summer pop-corn movie, no more no less.

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    1. I'll admit that I've somehow missed Babel completely since it came out. This movie and Kikuchi's performance makes me sure to rectify that.

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    2. She was easily the best thing in Babel, a movie I didn't otherwise care for. If you haven't seen The Brothers Bloom yet, see that instead!

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    3. I own The Brothers Bloom on Blu-Ray. Why haven't I watched it yet?

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    4. You have! I showed it as part of a marathon back in 2009. You were there! It is DELIGHTFUL.

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    5. I forgot to ask, does Rinko play a "mute" in Pacific Rim? That seems to be her main role in western movies. ;)

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    6. I think I fell asleep during Brothers Bloom. I am old.

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    7. Great show guys! Too much Riske talk though. Blah. That guy's a douche.

      RE: The opening of Pacific Rim. I didn't really want a traditional monsters attack and now we're going to build robots to fight the monsters. What I meant was I liked the shots of the giant kaiju skull in the museum case and the shot of monster-stuff going on with that Japanese game show/talk show more than any of the scenes that came after it. I wanted more of that. It had a Starship Troopers satirical vibe which was mostly dropped right after the opening title credit.

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  3. I've seen about half of Brothers Bloom for SOME reason which I can't remember. What I saw I like a lot a d ill have to start over.

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  4. I'm seeing this tomorrow! I will report back with my thoughts, but right now, despite the lead actor potentially being kind of a dud, the movie looks interesting and fun. I don't need a whole lot from my summer movies as long as they are entertaining and lack stupidity. I'm also really glad that it apparently steers clear of just trying to set up a franchise. Sometimes I just want a full story in one movie.

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    1. I hate to say that I didn't LOVE Pacific Rim as much as I hoped I would, but I didn't. I liked it, and it was good mindless summer entertainment, but the lead actor wasn't very good, the fights seemed to drag on a bit too long sometimes (in my opinion. I might be alone in that thought), Charlie Day kind of annoyed me, and ocassionally I had a hard time following some things. All that being said, I felt that it was a very visually impressive movie, and I DID like Rinko Kikuchi and Idris Elba. The movie as a whole was more "eh, that was pretty good" than "that was great/amazing!"

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  5. Watched this today and just finished the podcast - it was great. The movie itself...was...OK. I think I pretty much feel the same way you do.

    I'm going to come out and confess that I don't HATE the Transformers movies, but I think I'm redeemed by the fact that I completely recognize that they are not GOOD movies should have been better. You're absolutely right that it's an asshole thing to say, "What did you expect from a giant robots fighting movie?" Fuck you, I expected more. The praise I will happily give Pacific Rim is that it did AT LEAST reach my minimum expectations for a "giant robots fighting" movie. Like you guys said, it's that perfect middle ground between not bad and not good, or as a French-Canadian might say, "comme ci, comme ca".

    I don't want to end on a sour note because I did enjoy watching this movie, but it's kinda sad that my "critic quote" for it, and pretty much every other movie I've watched this summer (exceptions: Fast and Furious 6 and This is the End), is "You won't hate it."

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  6. Solid summer blockbuster in my opinion. Really enjoyed the relationship between the two leads, I liked the subtly of it. The attraction was there, but their focus was always on the mission.

    The lead was forgettable (as Arrested Development would say, 'Him?'), but I think it was far better than a Shia LaBeouf with borderline personality disorder. Not that it deserves Transformers comparisions, but it feels somewhat unavoiable because of the scope of the action.

    Really enjoyed the kaiju design, and general special effects of the fighting sequence. To JB's point, the flashback of Rinko Kikuch's character drew me in, and was a very memorable sequence.


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  7. Okay, someone must be sneaking weapons-grade crazy-pills into my food when I'm not looking, because I feel like I saw a fundamentally different movie than most other people here... which is a bit confusing to me. I thought the movie was an incredible example of a perfectly balanced screenplay, incredibly nuanced acting and great character development-- so much so that the fights take a backseat in my recollection to all of those other elements. Basically, it was a movie that skipped past 'good' and went right up to 'holy crap I could watch this over and over and never get tired of it' status. I wrote a lengthy review and posted it on the F This Movie Facebook page, if any of you want to read it. It's the one that links through to Tumblr.

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  8. I really connected with your idea right at the end that internet-based reviewing is reducing criticism to a matter of "button pushing." As a member of that online culture, I constantly worry that I give too much credit to things I like while not giving enough to things I don't. I'm also frustrated when I see others blindly praising flawed material because it speaks to them. On the other hand, since there's little we can do to escape our buttons, I think it's just as important to acknowledge them as it is to be wary of them. What do you think we can do in terms of this dilemma?

    In other news, I found this to be a more balanced review of the film than I've found elsewhere, so for my money I think you did a great job resisting the "all or nothing" review atmosphere you often bring up.

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    1. PS. I loved JB's point about how CGI allows/encourages overly busy imagery.

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