My High Expectations for Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim is the upcoming film being directed by Guillermo del Toro and pays homage to the Japanese giant monster films, known around the world as Kaiju. Pacific Rim tells the story of giant creatures rising from somewhere in the depths of the ocean and waging war on mankind; in order to combat the legions of monsters humankind builds robots (Jaegers) just as big to be piloted by humans in an attempt to “stop the apocalypse”. On the verge of defeat mankind must turn to two unlikely heroes – a washed up former pilot and an untrained rookie – to pilot a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past.

The trailer debuted today, here it is:

Now you can’t deny the grand scale of epic-ness contained within those two minutes?!

I first heard about Pacific Rim a couple of months ago and at first I did think that it sounds just like your typical disaster-turned-action-movie but then my mind was soon put to ease. Guillermo del Toro is a director that doesn’t do things by half; he is one hell of a credible name in the world of movies and has previously brought us the critically acclaimed Hellboy and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army as well as the incredible Pan’s Labyrinth. All of these three films really show that del Toro can do special effects like no other director out there and that when he uses them he makes sure that everything looks perfect and that they do not distract from the film. The brief glimpses in the trailer of the giant see monsters (which look magnificent) and the Jaegers (equally so) have a real sense of brilliance about them: everything just looks so epic, so huge that watching the trailer on my laptop screen just does not do it justice, it really looks like something made specifically for the big screen!

Now you can tell Pacific Rim is going to be requiring a huge budget so who are the two leads on whom the pressure lies? Well, that would be Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi… you don’t recognise them names? Both of these have been successful in their careers so far yet stayed away from big blockbusters like this. Hunnam has appeared in Green Street, Children of Men and more recently the critically acclaimed television series Sons of Anarchy whilst Kikuchi is wonderful in Babel. They are supported by Ron Perlman (Hellboy obviously), Burn Gorman (my favourite character from Torchwood so nice to see him here), Charlie Day (Horrible Bosses) and arguably the biggest name among the cast these days, but still not a huge name, Idris Elba. These actors may not all be well known but from what I’ve seen of them I do really like them and Idris Elba is fast becoming one of my favourite actors to watch, I have a lot of faith in this cast. The script comes from Travis Beacham who’s last film was Clash of the Titans and yeah, it wasn’t that good but I don’t think the writing was much to blame for that.

Pacific Rim, quite clearly, is going to eclipse any other blockbuster you have seen recently and that is very clear just from the trailer. The vast scale that it is operating on is so huge it completely puts to shame other blockbusters like The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises who have their fight scenes battling to save New York or Gotham City whereas here you’ve got real threat, real awe, real horror and just sheer amazement at what Pacific Rim has achieved. I can’t wait to see an all out battle between the Jaegers and the sea monsters and I do believe this could be one of the greatest blockbusters ever made!

Pacific Rim is set to be released in the UK on the 12th July 2013.

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer #3

UK Release Date: 20th July 2012.

Eight years after Batman took the fall for Two Face’s crimes, a new terrorist leader, Bane overwhelms Gotham’s finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that brands him an enemy.

It’s the final chapter to Nolan’s brilliant Batman trilogy and one of the most hyped movies of the year but I can’t help but feel that this is a rather underwhelming trailer. Perhaps it’s because The Avengers trailers were full of action and style and all of the current hype is all about that, but there are still some interesting things to consider from the trailer.

Some things never change and even eight years on from The Dark Knight, Batman is still talking in the same voice and it’s still annoying. On the subject of voices though, Bane’s seems to have been improved after the negative reception of the first trailer (or perhaps that was just a bad line of dialogue and the rest was alright, who knows?).

It looks as though Catwoman and Batman might just be teaming up to help Gotham, although being Catwoman I am expecting a betrayal in there somewhere but Anne Hathaway, surely, must have put fans minds at ease now as she looks great in the costume and we see her in a couple of quick action shots in the trailer. She wasn’t the fans first choice, perhaps, for Selina Kyle but she looks as though she will do a good job.

There are a few lines of dialogue that could hint at events of the film, or just be red herrings from Christopher Nolan. There is a lot of expectation that Batman and Bruce Wayne will die at the end of this film and with Alfred saying “I won’t bury you, I’ve buried enough members of the Wayne family” and when Catwoman says Wayne has given Gotham everything he replies with “no I haven’t, not yet”… is Batman going to keep fighting until he dies?

And also, why does Joseph Gordon-Levitt get so much trailer time if he is just playing some random police officer; surely he has a bigger role to play, whether it be his relationship with Wayne/Batman or possibly even in the future of Batman.

The trailer asks a lot of interesting questions and gives fans a taste of what to expect. The Dark Knight Rises will be a hit no matter what, but will it be as big as The Dark Knight?