"2,500 Tons of Awesome."

PACIFIC RIM (2013)

Image from eonline.com.

It goes without saying that, from day one, I was drooling over this movie like Tarantino at a shoe store. Big, massive aliens from the sea fighting mechanical powerhouses of destruction. Sold. Aliens and robots are pretty much my favorite thing (with cowboys and aliens coming in as a close second, tied only by mobsters and robots--if that isn't a movie, it needs to be created), so I was really, really easy to please. 

But no. They couldn't stop there. They couldn't just give me an awesome movie filled with bone-crunshing punches and shrill, otherworldly screams. No, they had to also build an intricate universe, sprinkled with moments of quirky humor and lovable characters.

You guys. It's looking like Christmas sure as hell came early for me this summer. 

There were, of course, a couple things that stood out to me that I've got to mention. So, with that, here are five reasons why Pacific Rim has officially set the summer blockbuster bar high. 

1. Not a Bolt Out of Place

ROBOTS.

Normally, I'm something of a sensitive movie-goer. I'm not the biggest fan of 3D and all those...gizmos and gadgets. So the fact that I saw this in IMAX 3D should have been a problem for me. But it wasn't. I barely noticed the 3D aspects of it. Now, to people who enjoy the shit-popping-out-at-your-face bit, that might be a problem. To me? It worked perfectly. 

But it's more than just the 3D. Occasionally, when you see a movie that's about 95% CGI, it shows. You can tell when the actors are talking to blank, green space. You can tell when something just doesn't feel right. Even if the CGI looks spot on, there will sometimes be that disconnect, that fabricated feeling. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the actors had such a deep respect and connection to their CGI robot machine-suits, but somehow, the CGI felt completely natural to me. It was organic to the world and flowed seamlessly through the film. A+ to the nerds who worked on that one. 

2. Drifting

Image from http://www.slate.com.

Can we talk for a second about how awesome drifting is? A mental brain-connection between two people and a machine. C'mon. That's fucking awesome. In fact, all the world-building details of this story were awesome. Everything from drifting to the wall they tried to build to the various different Jaeger models and their human teams (can I have a movie solely about the Russians now?). I am going to be very, very sad when sci-fi goes back out of style. Like, borderline depressed. Mark my words.

3. Idris Elba

Just stop with your awesome, Mumbles.

Let me count the ways I love this man. I will follow him to the Apocalypse. And then watch him cancel that shit. I was probably the most invested in his character, simply because he was exactly the kind of over-the-top character that fit so perfectly into the texture of the world. Not to mention, his character was hard and direct when he had to be hard and direct, yet was able to inspire anyone to action with only a few precise words. You go, Idris Elba. 

4. Everyone Else

Image from http://www.nerdist.com.

What can I say? The acting was good. Charlie Hunnam--who you have to love for his subtle fuck you faces if nothing else--it turns out is great on and off the motorcycle. He's turning out to be a surprisingly versatile actor and I'm looking forward to seeing more of his face. His counterpart, Rinko Kikuchi, was everything she needed to be--wide-eyed, inquisitive, and somehow simultaneously bold and timid. 

5. The Newton's Cradle

Just because I can't get enough of these two.

More than the acting, the writing was good. Which, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting. No, they're not going to win an Oscar for best screenplay anytime soon, but it was fun. It was more than a couple machismo-enfused one-liners. It was campy at times (moments which Charlie Day and Ron Perlman pulled off brilliantly), powerful and ribcage-expanding at times (all signs lead to Idris Elba), and even unexpected at times--some of my favorite moments involved the brief, still silences in which a seagull took flight or a Newton's cradle began to click in the middle of a city-crushing fight. The script knew it was a shameless, campy movie and ran with it--it didn't try to make it bigger than it was, it didn't set the audience up for a plethora of increasingly bad sequels (though I wouldn't be surprised if they happened anyway). The film never took itself too seriously while simultaneously giving the plot the epicness it deserved which, at the end of the day, what exactly what won me over. 

David Plays Basketball With His Alien Buddy.

PROMETHEUS (2012)

Image from screenrant.com.

I'll be the first to say it. This movie couldn't disappoint me if it tried. It was directed by Ridley Scott. It had chockfull of actors I admire. But best of all, its a movie about aliens and robots, which I can never get enough of. For this reason above all, I am completely unreliable when it comes to reviewing this movie. There were aliens and they fucking kill shit. There were robots and they reprogrammed everything my brain told me I should believe about robots. Put a fucking fork in me. This movie could have been called David Plays Basketball And Rides A Bicycle With His Alien Buddy For 3 Hours and I would have been completely and utterly content. But wait, there's more. With spoilers galore. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Robots in space. Win.

Truth be told, Prometheus doesn't exactly cover a lot of new ground. It wouldn't exactly be a stretch to call Prometheus the slightly-watered-down sister of Blade Runner (1982). With aliens. It coaxes out all the old questions: where did we come from? Why were we created? What happens when man comes face-to-face with his maker? However, these are questions I'll never get tired of revisiting, especially while space-octopus-monsters are skull-fucking the all the redshirts in the bunch.

Ridley Scott is, of course, a big name, especially when it comes to science-fiction. And it just so happens, he's got a lot of big names supporting him. Time to run down the list. Logan Marshall-Green played the radical scientist, Charlie. He's a great actor and too often pushed to the sidelines, so it was good to see him get his moment as the frenetic scientist. Don't even try to recognize Guy Pearce. Don't. Charlize Theron was brilliant as the straight-backed, no-nonsense Meredith Vickers. Ruthless and furious, Meredith is a force to be reckoned with. The character herself was great, steeped in personal issues that matched up nicely with the overall current of the movie (humanity vs. robots). My only issue with her character would be the moments when the words coming out of her mouth seemed to fit a little too nicely with the theme (namely, "father"). Still, her chemistry with the other actors was great, particularly up against Michael Fassbender and Idris Elba.

Rock on, Mumbles.

Speaking of. Idris Elba. Gotta love that man. His character, Janek, was--hands down--one of my favorite parts of the movie. Not to mention, probably the most human character in the entire film. He was a cool, down-to-earth cat with a good sense of humor. I need nothing else. Well, except possibly a riveting crew to support him. I'd like to give the film the benefit of the doubt. I saw it at midnight in IMAX 3D. Maybe I was overwhelmed. Maybe I was too busy hyperventilating to catch the names of the deckhands. However, after the brilliance that is the bromance in Alien (1979), I was expecting much of the same here. And I got it. In short, scattered bits and pieces.

I get it. I do. Ridley Scott has an entire fucking world to build here, he doesn't have a lot of time to spend on the spaceship family. Still...an epic, intellectual mindfuck in space will always be an epic, intellectual mindfuck in space. But it's a little hard to separate the humans from the robots when the passengers don't ever seem to have real ties to one another. The emotional connections and bromances between the different characters could have worked well to up the ante, but instead we get a lot of individual characters doing their own thing, completely oblivious to each other. Maybe I just need more foreplay than the average audience member, but I wasn't getting my anticipated warm and fuzzy feelings from any of the characters' relationships.

On the other hand, who needs warm and fuzzy feelings when you can have extended sequences of David the robot? Michael Fassbender wins again. David completely stole every single scene he was in. End of story. Part the credit goes to Fassbender's acting skills. He's proven it before and he proves it yet again--this guy can handle anything you throw at him. He's a fucking powerhouse. And David is a lot of character to carry. He's a robot, but not the kind that sits around and waits for commands. He has an inch of curiosity, pettiness, and betrayal. All-too-human emotions that look terrifying in the hands and heart of a robot.

Looking for foreign object in male patient? Go for the uterus. 

Now for my girl. Noomi Rapace. If I hadn't previously named her BAMF Of The Week, she'd be flaunting that title right now. Talk about a badass chick. There is so much badassitry in the character of Elizabeth Shaw, I had to make a list to keep it all straight:

1. Despite being a scientist, she's kept her cross and (partly) her religion. I don't care one way or the other about religious characters, but it breaks the mold of the angst-ridden, nihilistic scientist. She straddles with world of the physical and the spiritual, and does it all in a logical manner. Kudos. 
2. Her husband/boyfriend/whatever dies in a fire. She's despondent, but she hasn't lost her singular reason to live. 
3. She performs a c-section. On herself. To get rid of a terrifying alien baby.
4. ...And doesn't go maternal on the evil little thing, like 90% of thoughtless women heroines who think with their women-parts. 
5. She's just had major surgery, but she pushes forward. Like a boss. Even though everyone sees her groaning in the corner and clutching her stomach and doesn't lift a hand to help her. Damn "woman problems."
6. Alien? Maker with buyer's remorse? Fuck trying to go Chuck Norris on these bitches. Instead, she uses her smarts and kills two birds with one stone. 
7. Everyone's dead? No matter, she's still got a job to do. 
8. Of course, it probably helps that she gets to spend the rest of her life with Michael Fassbender's head. C'mon. 

In short, Elizabeth Shaw is the shit. And, after all of that, one of the things that impresses me most is the fact that she's not Ellen Ripley II. Let's face it, Ripley is one of the most badass women of all time. If they wanted to duplicate her, there would be an audience for that. I would have been one of them. But Elizabeth Shaw is her own beast. She doesn't "roll with the boys." She doesn't have guns of steel. In fact, I don't think she wields a gun period (feel free to bitch slap me if I'm wrong). Instead, she uses her intellect and her heart. She isn't butch. She isn't brawn. She's feminine, she's emotional, she's spiritual. And she still kicks everyone's asses in the end. Now let me wipe this drool off my keyboard.

A little more drool.

Of course, before I wrap this baby up, I have to devote a little time to the most anticipated character of all. The alien. 2+ hours? Worth it for 5 seconds of alien scream. All the monsters of this movie (aliens and pre-human humans alike) were, of course, epic and terrifying. I will say this, though: I failed as a moviegoer. I fell for the oldest trick in the book and let myself get caught up in the hype. So when Ridley Scott said Prometheus was going to scare the shit out of me, I was ready with a change of pants. Instead, I got a couple gruesome scenes, but nothing that forced me behind partially-spread fingers. Not quite the scare I'd been holding out for, but solid, exciting creatures nonetheless.

All in all, I've got to repeat myself. It was physically impossible for Prometheus to disappoint me. Yes, there were flaws. But nothing so frustrating that it took me out of the movie. As someone who went into a complete Prometheus black-out a couple weeks before the film to avoid any and all spoilers, this movie packed a lot of surprises and definitely left me slack-jawed and mind-fucked. Now for the inevitable sit back and wait for Prometheus II: A Girl And Her Head. Second screening, here I come.