The Rivalry to End All Rivalries: Marvel Vs. DC

I know, I know. It's supposed to be a movie review blog. I just had to get my two cents in on this particular issue, though, as it's becoming more and more prevalent as it relates to the movie going public as a whole. Bare with me while I ramble on for a bit.

I remember a day, not that long ago, when you couldn't be a fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek. You had to pick one. No, really. You did. Oh, you could appreciate them both. But you had to single out one or the other. If you were a Star Wars guy or gal, you had to put it to the Star Trek guy or gal in your social circle. They, in turn, would need to expound upon the merits of their choice and explain to you why your choice was crap. Around and around we'd go.

These days, you get to say you like both as long as everyone agrees to hate Jar Jar.

I'm starting to see a similar trend developing with fans of the Marvel movie universe and the DC movie universe. For the uninitiated, let me give you a brief rundown.

Marvel and DC are the top two comic book publishing companies in the market. There are several smaller outfits putting out books as well, but most of the big guns are housed at these two companies.

Marvel Comics has brought to life heroes like Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, The X-Men, The Avengers, Captain America and more. Mostly in the game since the early 1960's, they have spent decades dominating the comic book market.

On the other side of the fence, there's DC Comics. Since the 1930's, they've created such heroes as Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and more. They put together the first team of heroes and called them the Justice Society of America. In short, DC was the first to put out a comic book with a guy in tights and a cape stopping crime and saving the world. They called him Superman.

Ok, that's your brief history lesson of comic books. A couple of things to note, though. While these two companies compete for the same market share, they are constantly bouncing talent back and forth between them (writers, artists and the like) and, more importantly, have actually worked together and co-published comics starring heroes from each company on several occasions. They seem to have a healthy respect for each other's work.

Now, on to the movies (I swear, I'm getting to the point of this article).

Supeman the Movie was released in 1978. It was the first big budget superhero movie of the modern era and it was a smash hit. Several sequels followed (the first one better than the original, the rest all dreck) and likely lead to Tim Burton getting his hands on Batman in 1989. And then that was a smash hit. It also followed nearly the same formula as the Superman franchise with 3 sequels, though this time each was weaker than the last. At this point, Warner Brothers (the parent company of DC Comics) let both of these properties have a rest from the big screen and turned to other projects. Enter 20th Century Fox.

Fox put out X-Men in 2000. No, not Marvel. Fox. See, Marvel had actually sold the movie rights to several of their properties throughout the years, never dreaming they would actually be getting into the business of making movies themselves. Properties like The Punisher, Blade, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and, their flagship and most popular character, Spider-Man were sold off to other movie studios who developed those properties into (mostly) success movie franchises. X-Men was the first to market and set the tone for what was to come.

Marvel, to their credit, saw where the winds were blowing and decided to capitalize on their large catalogue of B and C list heroes by making individual movies, starting with Iron Man in 2008, to introduce these characters to the general public. Fans ate them up. Since then, Marvel has built a cohesive movie universe where several heroes have been brought to the silver screen in their own franchises, then all brought together to battle evil alien invaders in The Avengers in 2012. And oh, how the money rolled in.

DC, on the other hand, is owned by Warner Brothers. This means that every single character that's ever appeared in a DC comic is available to WB to build a franchise around. That's 75 years of publishing history with, literally, hundreds if not thousands of characters to choose from. So, naturally, they've only ever really tried to build around Superman and Batman. In 2005, DC rebooted the Batman franchise with Batman Begins. Directed by Christopher Nolan, it was a fresh and realistic take on the origin of The Caped Crusader. Both financially and critically successful, this lead to two sequels, both earning in excess of a billion dollars each worldwide. Thinking they'd cracked the formula, DC tried to reboot the Superman franchise as well with Superman Returns in 2006. It didn't go so well. A rather dull movie, the film failed to score great reviews and, more importantly, didn't exactly light up the box office. Green Lantern in 2011 also failed to connect with audiences.

Now it was back to the drawing board. And they drew up Man of Steel in 2013.

Man of Steel is the first in a connected series of movies for DC. Similar to Marvel, DC wants to team up their heroes on the big screen and watch some serious dollars roll in. Man of Steel only had Superman in it, but hints were dropped throughout that our plucky hero wasn't alone in the tights wearing business.

Man of Steel 2, it was announced, would have Batman starring alongside Superman for the first time on the big screen. Soon, Wonder Woman was added to the mix. More rumours abounded that other heroes might also make an appearance. Should it be successful, this would put DC right beside Marvel with a big movie universe starring several of their heroes all connected.

And the fans were outraged.

For reasons that still escape me, we're right back to the whole Star Wars vs. Star Trek thing again. The majority of fans (yes, I'm generalizing) are split right down the middle, hating one while loving the other. To those fans, I have one simple question:

Why?

Both of these companies publish comic books. Both of these companies are spending ridiculous amounts of money to bring those comic book heroes and villains to life on the big screen. While I understand they're competing for your dollar, why is it up to you to hoist the flag and champion one or the other? Why can't we, as fans of the genre as a whole, love both?

As a movie reviewer (delusions of grandeur be damned), I try to take the time to read movie news and rumours as they're published along with fan reaction to said same. No other genre has so completely divided the fan base like comic book movies. There are people absolutely hating Man of Steel 2 and Avengers 2...and those movies haven't even begun production yet.

In their blind loyalty to their particular product or brand, they can't see the good in the other. Ever met someone that only drinks Coke and refers to Pepsi as something akin to liquid death? That's the kind of people I'm talking about. Personally, I don't taste much difference between the two (I've taken the Pepsi challenge half a dozen times and I think I'm around 50/50) and enjoy both.

I love watching dudes and dudettes running around in tights kicking other dudes' and dudettes' collective butts. Do I really have to slap a label on my forehead, only cheering for one side or the other?

Don't get me wrong. I haven't loved every movie produced from comic book source material. Far from it. But I haven't singularly loved or hated any of them just because of who was producing them.

To the fandom, I say this: Let each film stand on it's on merits. Don't blindly follow one company or another like sheep. Make up your own damned minds.

Doctor Who: What's in a name?

This week, I finally got the chance to catch up with everyone's favourite time traveling problem solver. No, I'm not talking about Inspector Spacetime. I'm talking about The Doctor.

When I say catch up, I mean I binge watched the entire series on Netflix. From Eccleston to Tennant to Smith and now to Capaldi. I'm only talking about the 2005 revival of the show. 

A few things have struck me about the show and some of the ramifications of the plot lines. I thought I'd share some of them with ya. Be warned, though; if you're not a Whovian, there are spoilers ahead!

Foremost among my observations deals with The Doctor's true name. In 50 years of the show being on the air, it has never been revealed. In fact, in this last season (or series as the Brits call it), it became a major plot point. They even went so far as to call one of the last three episodes "The Name of the Doctor". A lot of folks were convinced they were finally going to give us the name of our favourite Galifreyan. Alas, it was not meant to be. Nor will it be meant to be. Like, ever.

The real conundrum here is the fact that the name has remained hidden for 50 years. There is absolutely, positively no way you can ever reveal it now. Not only would it likely end up being a let down after five decades of build up but, more importantly, where would you go from there? It's the last great secret on the show. To reveal it would be to end all the intrigue and suspense and have nothing to follow it up with.

That's why this past season really surprised me that the show runners made it a central plot point. I understand that the show is called Doctor Who, so it's natural that you'd be asking yourself the same question. As a throw away, it's a cute line (sort of like "It's bigger on the inside"), but using it as a plot device simply hems you into a corner and ties your hands together. You can't reveal it, so why bother building up to it as though you can and will?

Which leads me to my next question. Who actually knows his true name? So far, on the show, the only character that has flat out said they know it is River Song. We thought we were going to see the scene where the Doctor tells her his true name on the day the two got married. Turns out he said something else to her entirely. I'm not saying there may not be some future episode where some incarnation of the Doctor tells River what his true name is, but I can't imagine the circumstance or the reason he would.

Who else might know? Well, what about the other Time Lords? They've shown the rulers of Galifrey on a few different episodes now. They even address him directly and yet they still call him The Doctor. Same with The Master. So what's the deal? Do Time Lords adopt some kind of nickname or moniker early in their lives then assume it as their identity, making everyone refer to them as such? If that's the case, what is the point of having birth names at all? And what would make them so earth-shatteringly important?

I'll be the first to admit I'm not well versed in Who lore. I caught the show on TVO when I was a kid whenever it was on (the Tom Baker era), but I remember very little of it. Some of these questions may have been dealt with during the Classic series. If so, I invite you to drop me a comment and set me straight.

I've got more Who to discuss, but I think I'll save it for next time.

Gravity (2013) Review

This week (actually, a few weeks ago), I strapped on my space suit and moonwalked down to the local cinema to check out Gravity (2013) starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and directed by Alfonso Cuaron.

Gravity takes place in space. That's pretty much the plot synopsis right there. Bullock and Clooney are working on a satellite when all hell breaks loose. It then turns into a fight for survival.

Even that synopsis is too long. I could sum up this film in two words:

Absolutely beautiful.

Visually this is, hands down, one of the most stunning pieces of film you will ever see. The movie starts off in space and stays there for the duration. Some of the laws of space are even observed. Most notably, the lack of any sound. This means that, while all this crazy destruction is going on around them, all you hear is Bullock and Clooney talking and breathing in their own suits. Oh, and the soundtrack...

Steven Price did the soundtrack for this movie and it's brilliant. You go in expecting grandiose, orchestral music to accompany the sci-fi space setting. You don't get it. What you get is some amazing ambient tones and music that manages to get you exactly where you need to go to appreciate the scene in question without bashing you over the head with it. It's a truly unique approach and a welcome surprise in a movie that was full of them.

The special effects are not only top notch, but they seem nearly impossible. In the past, when a movie wanted to simulate weightlessness, they'd send the cast and crew up in a plane ironically called the "vomit comet". It's the same plane used by NASA to train it's astronauts. It does, in fact, render everyone and everything weightless, but only for a brief period of time. Apollo 13 is a good example of a movie that utilized this feature.

For Gravity, however, the vast majority of the film takes place in a zero-g environment. You get long, beautifully shot takes of Bullock and Clooney blissfully floating around completely weightless. I scratched my head trying to figure out how it was done. I won't spoil the experience for you, but I actually had to look it  up to see how they did it. If you'd like to know, you can too!

That's not to say all is well. While the movie is very tightly edited at 91 minutes in length and is largely wall-to-wall action and adventure, it suffers greatly from a lack of backstory and character development. I appreciated the sequences and the non-stop pacing, but I found it difficult to root for anyone in this film. I don't know them. As I said, the movie starts off with them already in space and just stays there. No flashbacks. No long pieces of exposition about past experiences (save one that isn't very long nor is it very impactful). Just them. In space. Fighting for their lives. Pulse-pounding? Absolutely. Did I much care about either of them? Not really.

The film is a triumph of visual effects. It's a groundbreaking movie much the same way Star Wars and The Matrix were when it comes to showing off just what someone can do with technology and imagination. It's a bit of a shame about the characterization, but you'll barely notice it since you won't leave the edge of your seat once the debris starts to fly.

4 out of 5 stars

Gravity (2013) Review
Reviewed by The Bitter Critic on Dec 07 2013
Rating: 4

Elysium (2013) Review

This week, I put on my jumpsuit, shaved my head and skipped on down to the local theatre to see Elysium (2013) starring Matt Damon and directed by Neill Blomkamp.

The film tells the story of Max DaCosta (Damon), a down-on-his-luck guy who, after an accident at work brought on by negligence by the supervisor, has only 5 days to live. His only hope for survival are the medical facilities on the sub-orbital space station Elysium. The catch? Elysium is extremely well guarded (apparently) and only meant for the rich and wealthy while the rest of the sweaty masses live on a disease-ridden and overpopulated Earth.

If you're expecting another film like Blomkamp's directorial debut and Best Picture Oscar nominated District 9 (2009)...a taut, gritty, political drama about class separation that just happens to have a sci-fi setting...you're going to be sorely disappointed.

My assumption here is that, with all the good will District 9 (2009) garnered, Blomkamp was basically given a blank cheque and told to write and direct whatever the hell he wanted. And boy does it show.

There's enough wrong with this movie that I simply can't dedicate entire paragraphs to every point. I'm going to have to just give you the quick and dirty bullet points instead. 

WARNING: Here there be spoilers

• Sharlto Copley is ridiculous as the lead bad guy. He's so over the top he makes other movie villains seem downright Shakespearian by comparison.
• Matt Damon seems half asleep throughout most of this. I know he's supposed to be sick near the beginning of the movie, but he just never seems to engage with the audience. Most of the time, I just didn't much care what happened to him.
• Jodie Foster is absolutely dreadful. She sounded like she was trying to effect some kind of an accent, but I have zero idea what it was supposed to be, other than terrible. Her motivations were sketchy at best and never really fleshed out. Her death (I warned ya!) not only comes as no surprise, but it's handled very poorly.
• I hope William Fitchner was paid very well for his role in this film. Not only is his character utterly useless, but it's so cardboard thin and cliched I cringed every single time he was on the screen.
• It's over 90 minutes before Damon's character actually gets to Elysium. Let me say that again. It's over 90 MINUTES.
• Damon's underworld contact on Earth is a guy named Spider. Spider has a rather thick accent. Spider is a very fast talker. This means I didn't catch fully two-thirds of what Spider was saying most of the time.
• Neill Blomkamp can only shoot a film with two types of cameras; a slow-motion one and an extremely shaky handheld one. Neither was flattering to this film. It's like Ang Lee and Paul Greengrass had a baby and that baby grew up to be an old person with palsy and that old person with palsy was operating the camera most of the time.
• Jodie Foster's character asks William Fitchner's character to make her a program that will put Elysium under her control. Fichter even labels her plan as a "coup". Somehow, when this one program is run, it actually does the exact opposite of that thing, making everyone everywhere a citizen of Elysium and sending help out to the entire Earth. What?
• And then there's the suit. You've seen the trailers. You know Damon gets strapped into this suit looking dealie that appears to give him super powers and is the key to getting on to Elysium. Only it's not. The suit almost never comes into play. It also doesn't do anything to help him get to Elysium. It kinda gets used in a couple of fights and it ends up storing this mystical, magical program (like a really painful USB stick) and that's about it.

To summarize, this film looks terrible due to the shoddy camera work. The plot is laughable, the action is sub-standard and all the high ideals put forth at the beginning of the film end up taking a back seat to the horrible cat and mouse act between Evil Copley and Boring Damon. You don't need to see this film.

1 out of 5 stars

Elysium (2013)
Reviewed by The Bitter Critic on Aug 09 2013
Rating: 1

So...Ben Affleck is Batman (and other interesting casting choices)

In an interesting casting move, the much anticipated followup to this year's Man of Steel movie, tentatively titled "Batman vs. Superman" will feature Ben Affleck playing Bruce Wayne/Batman along side Henry Cavill's Clark Kent/Superman.

Yes, that Ben Affleck.

And the Internet was torn asunder....

Coming as no surprise, the blogosphere in particular and most of the Internet in general has come out against Affleck donning the cape and cowl. I haven't seen many decent reasons why. Most of them just say "he sucks" or "did you even see Daredevil?". The trouble with that is, "he sucks" isn't anything I can work with and the whole Daredevil fiasco was a decade ago, a different studio and a different property altogether.

I'm not going to lie; my initial reaction was shock. I mean, Ben Affleck? He wasn't even on the radar as far as I knew. I had read that Warner Brothers was looking for a 40+ actor to play the role as a grizzled veteran of crime fighting. Affleck is 41, so he fits that bill. And while he hasn't won any accolades for his acting, he is coming off a best director Oscar win for Argo (2012), after directing the much applauded and critically acclaimed The Town (2010) two years earlier. 

But Batman? Really??? How can this be a good thing? Clearly, this is the worst casting mistake since....

Well, hang on a second.

Movie casting is a tricky business. Even in the world of comic book movies, casting an actor to play what is essentially a cultural icon can be a daunting task. This isn't the first time someone's been cast to put on a costume and fight crime and have the general public go into a frenzy over the choice. 

Let's do a list, shall we? Here's my Top 4 comic book casting choices that were initially met with scorn but turned out to be pretty great. 

4. Hugh Jackman - Wolverine
It's hard to imagine, but when the first X-Men (2000) movie came out, unofficially ushering in the modern era of great comic book films, Hugh Jackman was a relatively unknown Aussie stage actor known for his singing and dancing. Folks who had seen him didn't think he could bring the intensity and grittiness to the anti-hero Logan that was needed to really define the character. They couldn't have been more wrong. He's now appeared as the Wolverine a record 6 times and is about to put in his 7th appearance in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). 

3. Christopher Reeve - Clark Kent/Superman
Similar to Jackman, Christopher Reeve was a virtual unknown, having only appeared in a few tv soaps leading up to being cast as the most iconic superhero of all time. The short list of actors that the studio wanted for the role reads like a who's who of Hollywood at the time. Names like Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Nick Nolte and Burt Reynolds were being bandied about. When Reeve was cast, he was such an unknown that he only received 3rd billing for the film (Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman getting spots one and two, respectively)! Now, find anyone born in the late 60s or through the 70s and ask them who they most associate with the role of Superman. Every single person will tell you it's Reeve. He's my generation's Superman.

2. Michael Keaton - Bruce Wayne/Batman
Ah, Mr. Mom as Batman. To say fans were outraged by this choice is putting it mildly. The backlash from this news was absolutely staggering, especially considering it predates the Internet. "Michael Keaton? Isn't he just, like, funny and stuff? He'll make a terrible Batman!". No, dear genre fans. No he won't. Keaton's turn as the Caped Crusader is still, to this day, the favourite of a lot of fan boys and gals. His quirkiness as Wayne and his dead seriousness as the Dark Knight lent weight to the role that could have come across as campy and cartoony as Batman had so often been portrayed prior to this. You never got the sense Keaton was winking at the camera or not taking it seriously.

1. Heath Ledger - The Joker
If there's one thing I remember most clearly about the time that Ledger was announced as playing the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), it's all the comments that were made about how some Aussie pretty boy was never going to be able to fill Jack Nicholson's shoes. The single greatest comic book villain turn (one of the single best villain portrayals period, really) and a posthumous best supporting acting Oscar later and nobody can imagine anyone nailing the role of the Clown Prince of Crime the way Ledger did. It truly is a shame that we won't be able to see more of him in the future.

To sum this all up, let me just say this to the shocked and outraged fans out there wailing about Affleck being Batman. I, like you, was shocked as well. I've gotten over it and you should too. At the very least, give the man a chance to get in there and show you what he's got. If he's terrible in the role, I'll jump on the bandwagon with everyone else and write Warner Brothers a sternly worded letter. If he's great, like the actors I've listed here turned out to be great...well then I expect there will be a lot of crow served on the Internet that day.

The Wolverine (2013) Review

This week, I refused to trim my sideburns, donned my favourite yellow spandex unitard and went across to the local cinema to check out The Wolverine (2013) starring Hugh Jackman and directed by James Mangold.

The story takes place some time after the events of X-Men: Last Stand (2006). Logan (Jackman) is a bearded, bedraggled man haunted by memories of his past love Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), living off of booze and little else up in the mountains somewhere. He's approached by a young Japanese woman who's job it is to bring him back to Japan where a soldier from WWII that Logan saved can pay his last respects and say goodbye. When Logan gets to Japan, hijinks promptly ensue as everything is not as it seems....

Wait. Actually, everything pretty much ends up being exactly as it seems. Well, the parts that make any kind of sense, anyway.

Jackman embodies the role of Logan/Wolverine seamlessly. He's one of those rare Hollywood actors who've become so synonymous with a single role, yet has managed to branch out and put together a fairly impressive body of work. Instead of turning his nose up and outgrowing the role that made him famous, Jackman returns again and again, paying homage to the character that made him a household name.

Unfortunately, he's saddled with one of the worst films I've seen this year. And that's saying a lot.

The plot, if you could call it that, has two major points. The first focuses on the granddaughter of the tech industry giant that Logan saved back in WWII. She stands to inherit the company once her grandfather dies, much to her father's chagrin. Thugs are hired by her evil dad to take her out. Logan decides it's his job to protect her. They spend two days together and fall in love with each other. His love for this Japanese girl whom he met two days ago is enough for him to let go of the years long love he's had for Jean.

Yep. You read that right. TWO DAYS.

I have to mention something about this love story. It's awful. The reason? The complete and utter lack of chemistry between Jackman's Logan character and "Mariko" played by Tao Okamoto. The last time there was a couple on screen that had this poor of chemistry, those movies had "Clones" and "Sith" in their titles. I never, not for one single second, bought these two as a legitimate couple. I certainly didn't understand Logan letting go of Jean for a woman he's just met and only shared a single night in bed with.

The other half of the plot is so convoluted I don't even know where to begin. The aging tech giant Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) was once stationed in Nagasaki during WWII. Logan was being held as a POW there. When the A-bomb starts to drop, Logan saves Yashida for no discernible reason. Years later, Yashida is dying of cancer and wants Logan to give him his power of healing in exchange for a normal life and a proper, ordinary death. Logan refuses and the old man "dies".

The old man's oncologist, a horrible, misused villain called The Viper played by Svetlana Khodchenkova, somehow robs Logan of his healing ability but doesn't pass it along to the old man. Meanwhile, the ex-boyfriend of the granddaughter Logan is protecting/loving is a ninja (totally not making this up) and has a huge gang of ninjas (still not making this up) that start out helping Logan, then wind up hunting and hurting Logan, then end up helping Logan again.

How do you bring that all together, you ask? Spoiler alert (which you will not need if you see the film), grandfather is still alive and behind the whole thing.

Sigh.

The action beats can't even save this movie. From the physics defying, ridiculous train top scene to the horribly choreographed hand-to-hand fight scenes that include the often misused and completely unnecessary extreme close-up, shaky handheld camera shots to the final, climactic fight between all the protagonists and all the antagonists, the action is just dreadful. Maybe I missed a memo somewhere, but I thought this guy was supposed to be a comic book super hero.

I can't fathom why this movie is reviewing so well, but I can understand why domestic moviegoers are staying away. While Jackman is great, everybody else is just appalling. Some of the dialogue is downright laughable in it's clunkiness and corniness. There isn't a single "reveal" in this movie that will surprise you in the least. It's just bad all the way through and easily the most boring movie I've watched this year.

1 out of 5 stars.

The Wolverine (2013)

Reviewed by The Bitter Critic on Aug 07 2013
Rating: 1

Pacific Rim (2013) Review

This week, I went to the cinema to check out Pacific Rim (2013) starring Charlie Hunnam and directed by Guillermo del Toro.

The story is straight forward and covered fairly well in the trailers. Giant monsters known as Kaiju (Japanese for "strange beast") have been attacking humankind from the depths of the Pacific Ocean where they've opened a portal from another dimension. Humankind's response is to build giant robot warriors called Jaegers (German for "hunters") to battle the Kaiju. Each Jaegar must be piloted by two people who enter something called "the drift", which allows them to share memories and operate the giant robot in a left brain/right brain type fashion. When the Kaiju start to evolve and the Jaegers start falling one by one, the governments of the world turn to a new plan to stop the Kaiju and cancel the Jaeger program. The few remaining Jaegers hole up in Hong Kong and start a last ditch effort to stop the Kaiju invasions once and for all.

Every now and then a movie will come along that will redefine a genre, changing everyone's perceptions about what it is to make a great movie. 

Unfortunately, this ain't it.

I was actually worried going in to this film that maybe I wasn't being as objective as I needed to be when it came to writing movie reviews. Was I putting so much hope into films that looked really cool going in that I'd turned a blind eye to anything that might make said movie look bad once I'd viewed it?

Nope.

First off, not everything about this movie is bad. If you're looking for mind-blowing, jaw-dropping effects, this is your popcorn summer blockbuster. The fights between the Kaiju and the Jaegers are not flashbang affairs. These fights last and last and there's more than one epic battle on display. The action sequences truly are breaking new ground and really showcase what a movie like Transformers (2007) could have been. No up close, shaky camera bullshit where you can't tell who's doing what. Each of the battle sequences is shot near perfectly and the choreography (if you can call it that when it's all done on computers) is spot on. During those battle scenes you can suspend your disbelief for a bit and enjoy some truly awesome carnage.

The story itself isn't terrible either. The concept, while borrowing heavily from other sci-fi sources, is still a neat one to explore. Giant monsters hitting us on a global scale? The world finally putting aside it's own petty differences and banding together to fight these things in the coolest manner possible? How can you go wrong with that?

By hiring terrible actors and throwing in every damned clichè you can possibly come up with, that's how.

Not all of the actors are terrible. Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadephia, Horrible Bosses (2011)) has a great turn as quirky scientist and Kaiju fanatic Dr. Geiszler. He's exactly as goofy as you expect him to be. Ron Perlman (Hellboy (2004), Sons of Anarchy) has a wonderful cameo as Hannibal Chow, a black market dealer in Kaiju organs. Burn Gorman's (The Dark Knight Rises (2012)) Dr. Gottleib makes a perfect, fastidious foil for Day's goofiness.

Unfortunately, none of the above mentioned actors are the stars of this film. What we end up with is Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Idris Elba (Luthor) and Rinko Kikuchi (The Brothers Bloom (2008)) in a competition to see who can be the most bland piece of driftwood on screen.

Hunnam plays Raleigh Beckett. His particular clichèd role is the reluctant hero with the tortured past convinced to climb back into the saddle one more time to save the freakin day. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but save it he does, my friends. Save it he does. Mind you, he does so with a deplorable lack of personality. I didn't find myself rooting for Raleigh at any point in this movie and he's supposed to be the main protagonist.

Idris Elba plays President Whitmore, who, after a moving speech to rally the troops, comes out of retirement to lead the final battle against the alien invaders intent on our natural resources and...and...ah crap. Wait a second. That's the wrong movie. That was Bill Pullman in Independence Day (1996). Let me try that again.

Idris Elba plays Marshall Stacker Pentecost who, after a moving speech to rally the troops, comes out of retirement to lead the final battle against the Kaiju. Elba is pretty bad in this. His English accent seems to come and go throughout the film which is really weird since he's actually English in real life. His scenes carry little weight and he brings absolutely nothing new to the table.

If Elba and Hunnam and bad in this, Rinko Kikuchi is absolutely dreadful. She plays Mako Mori, assistant to Elba's Marshall character and someone desperate to get into a Jaegar and fight some Kaiju. She's bent on revenge against the Kaiju for an attack on her home city when she was a child. She makes moony eyes at Hunnam throughout that are so overdone as to be downright comical. In fact, the only thing I found sadly funnier than that was her looks of determination, pleading and dejectedness whenever the subject of her piloting a Jaeger came up. I'm not sure who all tested for this role, but I'm willing to bet almost anyone would've done a better job. 

Having brought up the Kaiju attack when Mako was a child, I have to talk about the child actor that ends up playing Young Mako in a flashback sequence. The young girl's name is Mana Ashida and she's easily the best actor in this movie. I'm not kidding, I only wish I were. The scene in question is the only 10 minutes of the movie that has a truly human, emotional element to it and it's largely due to this little girl's performance. The scene and the girl will move you. I guarantee it.

Then there are the clichè's. I've already mentioned Hunnam's and Elba's characters. There's also the cocky Australian pilot who doesn't like Hunnam for absolutely no apparent reason other than to give Hunnam's character someone to spar with. Oh, and he has daddy issues. There are the Russian pilots who are stoic throughout and get almost no dialogue. The Chinese pilots get even less dialogue than that. 

More to the point, though, is how American-centric this movie ends up being. There are only four Jaegers that survive the initial purge: The Russians, the Chinese, the Australians and the Americans. Keep in mind, every major world government built one and the rest have all been trashed by the Kaiju. Only these four were badass enough to survive. And in the very first fight involving these four, the Chinese and the Russian Jaegers get destroyed and their pilots get killed and they accomplish absolutely nothing before they die. Even the Australian Jaeger gets disabled. Who comes in to pull everyone's fat out of the fire? The Americans, that's who! Just like doubleya doublya two! 

Even the climax of the film finds the American Jaegar, the American scientist and the American pilot the only ones to ultimately figure out what to do and save the day. 

This movie had the potential to step out of the mold and really showcase the global aspect of the film and story. Alas, it gets caught up in it's own clichès and takes the path of least resistance.

I wanted to like this film. I really did. I was hoping it would be the start of something really cool. What I got was a movie that had mind-blowing special effects but lacked brains and heart.

2.5 out of 5 stars

Pacific Rim (2013)
Reviewed by The Bitter Criticon Jul 20 2013
Rating: 2.5