PACIFIC RIM – Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Release Date – July 11th 2013

Does the world really need another robot movie?

Yes! Terminator, Transformers, Blade Runner, Robocop, Total Recall, Judge Dredd, all movies that featured robots, and, if, like me, you love to see machines tearing up the screen then Pacific Rim is a treat for the eyes.

Remember that Hugh Jackman movie, Real Steel? It was pretty crappy right? Remember all those Iron Man movies? They were pretty awesome right? So, you DO love robot movies. This flick sees bigger, huger, cooler robots than anything you could possibly imagine.

Pluses- Robots, Idris Elba, especially when he delivers the line – Today we are cancelling the apocalypse! Ron Perlman, the best effects of the year.

Minuses – Occasionally blurry due to the constant movement, super cheesy, kind of lacking too much beyond the chance to sit in the dark away from your worries and let Robots bigger than anything you’ve ever seen fight it out with enormous creatures from the deep….

Director Guillermo del Toro gave us Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, and wrote the screenplays for the Hobbit trilogy. His movie and comic book collection is so huge that he had to buy an extra home to accommodate it.

Overseas, the “Pacific Rim” numbers were mixed. Despite a No. 1 start in Korea, the $200 million-plus film came in fourth place in Australia with a less-than-monstrous $604k.

If you like robots battling alien creatures on a scale never seen before, you’ll dig this. The visual effects are out of this world, and this is a rare film I’d recommend seeing in 3D if you can, and whatever you do catching it on the biggest screen possible, like a VMAX.

4 Stars