In yet another summer bursting at the
seams with sequels and franchise tentpoles, some of us can be
forgiven for chomping at the bit for any blockbuster that wasn't made
simply to sell tickets to an established fanbase of some proven brand.
We get it this year in the form of Pacific Rim, Guillermo del
Toro's sloppy kiss to the subgenre of “kaiju eiga”; the Japanese
monster movie. It's debatable whether or not Pacific Rim is
the best of this year's big, loud, spectacular summer blockbusters,
but it cannot be denied that the movie is big, that it is loud, and
that it is spectacular.
The original premise behind Pacific
Rim – “original” insomuch that it was not directly adapted
from preexisting source material, although decades of kaiju eiga and
anime/manga, from Godzilla to Neon Genesis Evangelion
and more, serve as its inspiration – was initially concocted
by screenwriter Travis Beacham. In his story, we are plunged into a
world that has been at war with malicious alien life for some years now. A
brief expository prologue sets the stage: from a space-time rift
between two tectonic plates on the floor of the Pacific, skyscraping
monstrosities (the kaiju) emerge and lay waste to coastal cities.
