Pacific Grim

 (Pacific Rim Review And Rant By Neamo)

Complimenting a film when it's good is a fine and noble thing to do. This is a film that inspires no such nobility in me, nor does it's director. Prepare yourselves, it's about to get bitter.

With the world in ruin after the emergence of Kaiju's, Cthulian horrors that if left to their own devices would make a straight and steady beeline for Japan, emerge one after the other from a rift beneath the ocean and wreathe international havoc upon any nation in their path. To combat this new threat, all of the nations of the world unite to produce the most stereotypical and impractical defense form this world has ever seen, mecha's, or to the blissfully ignorant of you, enormous humanoid robots piloted by the young and emotionally damaged. Created in order to manhandle the beasts without conventional bullets for fear of their toxin filled blood seeping into the ocean below, these hulking titans of advanced engineering are powered by on board nuclear reactors, and wade into battle with all the grace and durability of rock-em sock-em robots, a flaw not missed by detractors. When our would be hero, Raleigh Becket boards the ineptly named Gipsy Danger, with his brother who we'll refer to as meat, we see a world far changed from the golden age of hope and prosperity. We also see why. Requiring two pilots in order to balance the strain of the mecha, or jaeger's AI system, it lurches predictably forward, swinging it's fists like a pair of glorified pillows against the armed rapist of it's tentacled foe, and while trickery is engaged, meat is quickly cleaved free from his brother in a scene so predictable and vapid that it could have been penned in crayon. A ladle of angst and a hasty government closure later, we see Raleigh working as a new age navvy on an international coastal wall, soon to be rubble. Can things end here? Of course not. Re-opening the jaeger project, a government official drags Raleigh back into the chair, and finds him an Asian co-pilot who quickly becomes the female love interest of our traumatized hero. With a rebuilt Gipsy Danger ready to breach the shore and take on the abyssal horrors, a plot is devised to nuke the breach, something before untested, and while a smaller sub plot involving a scientist mentally linking himself to the Kaiju appears, it ultimately goes nowhere and panders to nothing. There is a side 'villain' in the aggressive Australian, who dies predictably in a moment of redemption, and ultimately Gipsy Danger must swan dive into the void riding a Kaiju, which it does before detonating it's nuclear reactor. Earth's victory is secured.

What's that? I skipped and skimmed through the plot? Well frankly, I had to. It's a complicated, boring and trite affair that climbs the footholds of classic anime like a drunk baby supported by a guide wire, and while it covers a lot of ground, none of it is new. It's a mess, frankly. Boring for the most part, particularly in the exploratory quest for a Kaiju brain which leads to a half assed Ron Pearlman experiment, the only real joy to be garnered from the spouting nonsense is in the fight scenes, and they themselves make little to no sense. With fists that damage little, these shambling hulks of steel have no agility in water, and the only effective weapon shown is a sword that snaps out at the literal last moment. It begs the question, why not just wield your fucking sword from the offset? Why indulge in this fetishistic foreplay with the minions of the under dark when you have a light saber at your disposal? Why in fact not make the machines to be run by the computers that so clearly bear the reticent bulk of their creation and have them be controlled remotely? If we want to go further, why the hell would we go with mecha's to begin with, in lieu of other more effective methods of disposal, such as a seething cloud of swarming drones? I asked this, and I must refer to an answer stated rather plainly by someone trying to defend the film and it's premise. 'Well, having giant robots fight giant monsters is pretty much the only way to have a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters.' That's it in a nutshell. That is why I am frankly disinterested in the plot and the premise, and it's a beautiful summation. This was never a film, and for all the plot points it attempts to tout and references to promote, this abortion of cinematic values holds no sway. This film in it's entirely is about Guillermo del Toro attempting to show all and sundry his sketchbook in an act of unintelligent, self serving hedonism that proclaims itself a love letter to something greater. It isn't, it's balderdash.

The acting of this film is difficult to gauge, mainly because there is little to be seen of it anywhere. As such I'm not going to talk of it. I can't find it. There is no believable raw emotion, and every actor who took part in this sham should feel utterly ashamed of themselves for such blatant fan service in the face of actual performance. Instead I'm going to talk of the CGI. The CGI is good, certainly. It wasn't the magnificent leap of engineering I had heard it touted to be, that mark lays firmly with Avatar which to this day remains the most visually impressive computer generated film, though sadly it too is woefully lacking in all other areas. It looks decent enough, the water looked much as water does, the mecha's looked a little like Michael Bay rejects and the monsters like rubbery children's drawings, but they were rendered well, so there's that. The sound track might as well have been non existent to me for the impact it had, and likewise all other assets of the film simply weren't memorable. I know these were things that existed, just as I know there were indeed actors of flesh and bone who drifted lazily on screen, but that is the extent of my care of the matter.

Guillermo Del Toro is a director of whom frankly you should expect more. Able to work well with a lesser budget, he has produced some of the most fascinating films I've ever seen, in their conception and production. I must admit, these are Spanish films that were made on virtual shoestrings, but they are good in of themselves, fantastic to watch and a treat of general magnificence, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth amongst them. While not all of his films are hits, he has the spark of brilliance in him, so to see him direct and write something like this is much akin to seeing a drunken Beethoven shit in his own piano, to raucous applause I'm horrified to say.

If I were given the chance to see this film again, I would choose not to. When I say I would rather be publicly castrated than have to endure it or it's smirking and self satisfied fans, I am not overstating. Watch Pan's Labyrinth or The Devil's Backbone instead.

Robo-Flop

 

(Robocop 2014 Review By Neamo)

To break a little from my recent canter into television, I've decided to review a film, namely the reboot of Robocop. I know this may come of little surprise to you considering it's glorious progenitor, the general consensus of the world at large and indeed the title of this article, but this review is going to be generally unfavorable. I myself loved the original Robocop, it had a retro dystopian edge, special effects that were bleeding edge though now admittedly are dated, great overall performances and an iconic sound track. It was a thing of beauty, a pioneer in the industries of both Sci-Fi and Action genres. While it's sequels sloped into the imbecilic at break neck speeds, they never tarnished the original which stood alone as something to be admired and emulated through the decades that passed. Knowing this, and knowing my love of the source material, news of a revised and updated portrayal filled me with a sense of misery and dejection. I didn't feel foreboding of it's arrival as I had accepted from the onset that this would be a turd, all I was left with was the slow and anguished colonic irrigation of Hollywood to slop, spatter and squelch it's way to my screen.

I'm reluctant to break down the plot as it leaves me cringing in places, and frankly at this point I'm reiterating, but for the lesser aware of you I shall make this as brief as possible. The US Military have been using drones in other countries in an effort in peace keeping. The company that makes said drones, growing fat from the profits of war then marveled the world at large with enormous mechanized destroyers, a hark back to the original film, and robots of human stature and intricacy that essentially make any idea of law enforcement from humans look redundant. An influential newscaster shamelessly promotes the idea of introducing mechanized soldiers to police American territory, something that to this point has been banned and blocked fastidiously by a law that remains central to the film, and the company head is left in a conundrum. Que officer Murphy, a maverick cop whose partner, who we shall refer to as officer token, is shot by a weapons and drug smuggler. Throwing accusations of cover ups and corruptions at his colleagues, which of course later turn out to be true, Murphy is blown up whilst accidentally detonating a car bomb and is wheeled away to a salivating prosthesis scientist. Convincing the two dimensional construct of Mrs Murphy to sign a consent form that will rebuild him, make him faster, stronger and indeed more productive, OmniCorp sandwich his lungs and heart in clingfilm, tossing away the other non vitals like a stomach or spleen, and encase him in apple's latest equivalent to the iPhone ( The iRobot? Okay, I'll stop. ). Our newly rebuilt sentinel of honor and goodness then proceeds to solve his own crime, fight injustice and ultimately has a touching if short reunion with his family, taking down OmniCorp in the process and saving the day. And what of that tricky legal hurdle? Briefly swept away and then reintroduced immediately afterward, because that's how the legal system works.

 
This film boasts a collective of big names, all of whom have basically stated the opportunity represented a paycheck, and there remains little passion within. Our titular character ironically was more robotic during his every day good cop scenes than the entirety of his scenes as the flesh faced cyborg, and that's saying something. Leaping from bleeding edge hard nosed grit to bleeding heart whelp in spasmodic twitches, it felt uncomfortable and pandering and left much wanting. His family likewise were flat and otherwise added nothing. In fact, I would say the presence of a family and the desire to try and appeal to the every man cheapened the experience. The 'comic' mercenary douche acted as mere background vapor as did all but the starlit cast, and it's their performances I shall review. Samuel L Jackson is dangerously close to buying into his own hype it seems. I feel remorse in saying this as it's something many esteemed and established names in Hollywood seem to be indulging in, namely fan service, but it isn't something I can abide or get behind. I know the man can act, I've seen it, though admittedly I think more of him for his earlier work, and like wine he too has turned to vinegar. Hammy and generally laughable, he played his role with an exuberant comic book candor that I had hoped we'd left behind in the days of Batman and Robin. I'm not entirely sure if being a marvel favorite is what is causing this drain of talent, or whether it's simply time taking it's toll on the former badass, but this performance remains an unhealthy channeling of his performance from The Spirit. Michael Keaton was nothing to write home of, sadly, and while I didn't hate his performance it seems at this point the man is desperate for work, which is unsurprising as his film career post Burton has remained patchy at best. I recently had the misfortune of watching the new Need For Speed movie, and while I can assure you his performance within this surpasses his role in that abyssal horror, I couldn't help but feel it was a tired portrayal from an actor desperate for a paycheck. Of the performances, Gary Oldman's remained the best in strides, and while a little lackluster, I think Gary Oldman's effort remains the reason I watched til finish. I remain skeptical of how good it actually was however, and on reflection I think his was the lesser turd by comparison, not the pillar holding the production aloft.

 
 The special effects were decent enough. It showed me nothing I can call new, and instead seemed to be a collective of pieces of other films, a little strip of Elysium here, and a touch of the Matrix there, nothing to truly note, but nothing that offended greatly. The musical score didn't totally offend, a rebooted main theme being the only thing I can remember of it. It didn't break new molds, but it remained familiar enough to the original track that I felt comfortable listening. The reason I'm being short here, and the reason similarly that I haven't ripped into the plot, is because I'm making room for a rant of things I feel were notably poor. For one, the flip style helmet, and suit in general were bad moves. With an iPhone case for a helm, it stripped any ideal of freeing the human beneath which remained the large motivation for seeing Murphy's face in the original. Likewise, the light strip across it's back and front that served no purpose other than to alert the criminals shooting within the darkness of his general proximity didn't reek of intelligent design. Saving the arm pissed me off a little fiercely as it essentially scrapped a beautiful scene from the original where we first learn that Murphy is essentially meat to OmniCorp, "Lose the arm." remaining one of it's more poignant moments. Instead we are left with a dismembered hand attached by a plastic strut to his organ casing, which was shown gratuitously for simple shock value. The altering of his emotions through lowering dopamine chemicals to achieve a robotic like state in the mind of Murphy, the idea of the suit auto piloting around his flesh whilst giving the illusion of control, I'm sure they seemed very clever at face value. Ultimately they simply added to the hollow feeling within my chest and lack of enthusiasm toward the main character at large. The family scenes were drawn out and meaningless as they remained flat and void of any sentiment that was not sugar glazed, and the general atmosphere of the film left much wanting. I could continue to pick faults here for hours, so it's best that I restrain from a tangent and instead surmise.

I had tried initially to write something positive of the film, something that wouldn't redeem it's faults but instead give you a reason to watch it. I had tried, but in writing this review and assessing each part, I simply can't find a sane reason to advise it. The acting is shoddy at best, the effects are nothing special and the plot isn't so much a plot as it is the bare corpse of the first film, updated with a sickly sweet family edge. Don't watch this film, watch the original.