I know I'm gonna get flamed here for what I'm about to say regarding Pacific Rim. Did not like it for the most part. Sure, the FX looked great and the sets were amazing. But that's it. Even though the fight scenes looked good, they went on way too long and worst, the editing did the scenes a huge disservice because most of it was too 'close to the action' that you lose sense of where it's taking place. I found myself yawning through most of the movie, even during the fights. My biggest issue is that I hated every single "human" character in the movie. They were all boring as f*ck and cardboard cutouts of a certain "type" that needed to be inserted into the story. Both Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba were both wasted in their roles here and I'm a huge fan of both. What a shame as I went into this with very high expectations and pumped to see this.

I'm also a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro and love most of his movies, but I found that he leaned way too much on other films to make this one. He borrows heavily from obvious sources and not-so-obvious sources. As soon as you are able to shout out what movie such and such scene is derived from, you can pretty much see the plot coming a mile a way. Obviously the main influence is Godzilla. But there were plenty others as well from Blade Runner, Transformers / The Iron Giant and even Argmageddon gets some love here too.

The movie is a visual feast for sure. But that's all it has going for it. Like I said, I'm probably in the minority here, but I think the movie is overrated and then some. It's definitely a movie I will never watch again and I absolutely could care less about a sequel, which I'm sure is coming. Movie is worth a Rent to test out your Surround Sound System. Beyond that, it's boring. It hits all the tropes you'd expect from a popcorn flick. I just expect a whole lot more from Toro. The only scene that played fantastic for me was the Young Mako scene. It came across as real in her terror and I thought the little girls acting was fantastic.

Let the ripping begin. Flame on..........

You're not in the minority (well maybe here, since there's only three people on this board and I liked the movie).  io9 did a good write-up about this vs Godzilla and listed out the issues that were issues for people when it came to Pacific Rim, and that's a site that totally dug the movie.  I'll bet that you'd agree with a lot of what they bring up.

I do remember being a little bored the first hour the first time I saw the movie (but boy did that pick up once they started fighting with the Jaegers), but I found it smoother the second time around.  It sucks that you didn't like it, not that you were wrong, but I definitely feel your pain, knowing how psyched you were to see this.

I can't believe you didn't mention Independence Day in your review, given how much the third act cribs from the structure of that movie.  Not that I'm complaining at all.

You know, you mentioned the issue of being too close to the Jaegers to see what was going on, but they're honestly SO big, it's hard to get the camera far away from them.  There's a shot where Gypsy Danger steps over a bridge, and I kept anticipating that big motion two steps early... that robot is much bigger than any mech I've seen before.  It's kind of like the Enterprise in the JJ Trek flicks, most of the time the camera can't keep the whole thing in frame at once.  I did love the shot where Gypsy's dragging that boat behind it to use as a bat, the movie is full of shots like that to keep your sense of scale.

BTW, doesn't Gypsy look like it's about to throw up on that DVD cover?

And thinking of that, something that annoyed me about this movie was that it was a new IP, but the animation in the end credits?  That looked like beauty footage of the toys that the movie would have been inspired by if it were any other movie.  Did anyone else think that?

I definitely caught the Independence Day nod. I just forgot to mention it. I thought that was one of the most blatant swipes in the movie. I half expected to see Bill Pullman walk out and punch Idris for getting a little too close in his speech to his men. I also did find it very odd during the end credits, but it didn't annoy me though.