Beasts from another realm, or kaiju, have arrived on earth through a portal far beneath the Pacific Ocean, ready to wreak havoc, each wave of attacks more vicious than the last. The nations of earth pool their resources to build “Jaegers, giant mecha equipped to go toe-to-toe with the kaiju, controlled by two pilots who must be psychically linked to each other. Raleigh Becket (Hunnam) is a former Jaeger pilot called back into duty five years after being scarred, mentally and physically, in combat. He is eventually paired with Mako Mori (Kikuchi), an untested rookie who lost her family to a kaiju attack as a child. They, along with the other Jaeger pilots, answer to Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Elba), a no-nonsense military man who was one of the first Jaeger pilots. With the Jaeger program in danger of being decommissioned due to diminished results, the remaining pilots must make their last stand against the destructive creatures.
There`s this pre-conceived notion of creature features being silly, quaint and low-rent affairs. After all, most of us would remember watching guys in rubber suits duke it out against the backdrop of an unconvincing model city in Tokusatsu films or TV shows (or 50s Hollywood B-movies). It is therefore extremely gratifying to see clashes between beast and machine so lovingly brought to life in an expensive A-picture. As children, we could only dream of robot/monster melees rendered with such conviction and quality. This is nostalgia made state-of-the-art; boyhood imagination made celluloid reality. It`s the kind of film that should be seen in the IMAX format and actually is really enjoyable in 3D, despite director Guillermo del Toro`s initial reluctance to convert the film into this format.
Guillermo del Toro is something of a fanboy, and his passion and respect for anime, manga and Tokusatsu fuels the film and sets it apart from something like a Michael Bay-directed Transformers film. Del Toro is far more imaginative than your average action movie director and together with the creative team for this film has come up with some very arresting visuals and ideas. Sure, it might be hard to tell one kaiju from another and all the battles are rain-soaked and dimly lit, but del Toro has somehow managed to find a sweet point between “outlandish and “awesome, crafting many moments which make one want to leap out of the seat on an adrenaline rush.
If you`re not in a particularly charitable mood, the plot could be described as “formulaic: there`s the hero who must overcome a past trauma and rise to the occasion alongside a wide-eyed but equally-tormented rookie, unstoppable behemoths not of this earth, a “combat as foreplay scene, the battle-hardened boss man who oversees the whole operation, comic relief scientists and tech guys, a cocky rival and a ticking clock. However, there are definitely times when canned food can taste absolutely delicious, and Guillermo del Toro has cooked up a storm. ClichÃ