Pacific Rim

Guillermo del Toro is sitting on the floor in his office when his wife enters: 'GUILLERMO!! Are you playing with Transformers now? How did you save the Jurassic Park dinosaur dolls I tried to burn last week? And are you wearing my heels again?!' Guillermo, in a rare moment of thinking on his feet, responds: 'Ayayaya Dios Mio! Honey! I'm ... rehearsing an action sequence!' Wife leaves. Del Toro thinks to himself 'Oh great. Now I have to come up with a movie that explains this shit to her...'

Luckily, I was able to tune out all the parts of the film were people were involved in conversations instead of controlling goddamn robots to punch goddamn interdimensional monsters in the goddamn face. So I had a pretty good time with this. If I ever travel back in time I will bring this movie along to show my 10-year-old self. We'll enjoy the movie until he asks if I did any of the cool stuff I thought I'd do when older. At that point I'll jump forward again, filled with shame.

The plot is mundane and predictable, but it does what it needs to to give the film a little bit of emotion and enough character interaction to keep you interested without trying to pretend the film is some dramatic magnum opus (like Avatar did). The film is unassuming in that aspect and I think that's to its benefit. It is total eye candy at heart, and damn it's a visual treat to watch. The fights are very well choreographed and the spectacle of it all is breath-taking. The acting was passable.

Is it a great movie that'll stand the rest of time? No. Is it an incredibly fun, incredibly dumb, incredibly well-made robot vs. monster game that was completely entertaining on an IMAX screen? Oh sweet Lord, yes.

Dear Michael Bay, watch this movie and learn how to make films with giant robots that don't suck!