My Review: Pacific Rim (5/10)

"Today we are canceling the Apocalypse!"

Pacific Rim is without a doubt Guillermo del Toro's biggest blockbuster movie and visually it doesn't disappoint. The main issue I had with this film had to do with its story and character development. I really didn't care for any of these characters and thought that the performances were pretty weak as well. The film relies entirely on the great visuals and awesome action scenes. This is what the Transformers action scenes should have looked like because the action scenes were great and the editing was done real smoothly (unlike in the Transformers franchise where there is so much editing during the action sequences that it is hard to follow). Fans of monster movies will really enjoy Pacific Rim because del Toro knows his craft, but if you are looking for a great storyline then you will be left disappointed like I was. Guillermo del Toro pays homage to those giant monster movies the Japanese started making several decades ago and it is sort of a love letter to them. Pacific Rim is visually stylish and it has some great monster and robot sequences, but there is hardly no humanity in this film despite it trying to with all the flashbacks and neural bridges mind blending scenes. It tries to illustrate the point of having humanity teaming up together to defeat these monsters, but I really didn't feel it and that is one of the main reasons why I didn't like this film. Despite the cool action scenes I felt the movie was dragging too much and it got more and more tedious as it moved on. I was disappointed with Pacific Rim and would much rather watch Hellboy over this.

Mankind has always looked to the stars for possible life forms, but what they didn't know was that it would come from the deep ocean. Monstrous creatures named Kaijus came through a portal from the bottom of the ocean and began destroying everything that was on their path. In order to stop them humans had to build these giant robots known as Jaegers. The Jaegers are controlled from within by two pilots who have their minds connected through a neural bridge; one pilot controls the left hemisphere of the robot and the other the right. The Jaegers are highly successful at first as they defeat the Kaijus and the pilots become the new superheroes, but as the years go by these Kaijus begin to adapt and come out even stronger than before. The Jaegers are beginning to be defeated and humanity is forced to build giant walls to try to keep these creatures away. However Marshall Stacker (Idris Elba) knows that the walls won't hold so he decides to create a resistance with four powerful Jaegers. He calls upon a former pilot named Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) to team up with rookie Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi). Along with another group of pilots these four Jaegers remain humanity's last hope for survival. Charlie Day and Burn Gornman play two scientists who are studying a way to counterattack the Kaijus. 

The lead performances from Hunnam and Kikuchi are pretty weak for an action movie. I really never felt chemistry between them and was disappointed with their performances. Idris Elba is a great actor, but I never felt connected to his character either. The rest of the pilots didn't have a backstory or anything that allowed us to care for them either. The two scientist were mostly added for comedic relief and I wasn't very impressed. My favorite performance came from Ron Perlman (Hellboy), an underground lord who trafficked dead Kaiju body parts. He had a very small role, but I thought those scenes were the most interesting ones of the movie. I liked the action scenes, but they get tiresome after a while and I needed to care more for the characters in order to enjoy this more. Pacific Rim is just too ridiculous and it suffers from a weak screenplay. It is a very noisy film with no character development whatsoever. Pacific Rim is one of Guillermo del Toro's weakest films to date (along with Pan's Labyrinth which is way overrated). 

My Review: Drive (10/10)

¨If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. I don't sit in while you're running it down; I don't carry a gun... I drive. ¨

Drive is probably my favorite film of the year so far. I hadn’t even watched the trailers for this movie so I had no idea what it was about, but what a special surprise I was in for. The movie hooked me from the very opening action scene up to the very end. Yes, the film is slow at times, but it`s also intense and original. This arthouse action movie works in great part thanks to a terrific performance from Ryan Gosling. He keeps on surprising me; he is a hugely talented actor and can excel in any role. This time he proved himself in this action film as the lead man. The reason the movie is so slow at times is because it is character driven, and Gosling`s character is so quiet and laid back; he hardly speaks and the dialogues he has feel real and authentic. The dialogue in this film was brilliant, everything about it made it perfect. I would absolutely watch this movie over and over again because it is just that good. I couldn’t believe the direction the movie was taking. It is one of those action movies that is hard to predict and I loved not anticipating what was going to happen next. Gosling is a star, he is great in this movie and the feel that the movie has is just so amazing. It`s hard to get this overwhelmed by an action film these days because we`ve seemed to have seen it all, but Drive feels fresh and original. It doesn’t focus so much on the action and the heists as much as it does on the characters. Gosling`s character grows increasingly dark over the course of the movie, and so does the violence in this movie. It really has a Tarantino/Cronenberg feel to it (A History of Violence, Pulp Fiction). Drive was amazing, but many people may be put off by all the violence.

The movie focuses on a driver (Ryan Gosling) who`s name is never said in the film; he has a part time job as a Hollywood stunt man specializing in crash scenes, but spends most of the time at a mechanic shop working for Shannon (Bryan Cranston) on some classic cars. Shannon knows that this guy is extremely talented and wants him to become a NASCAR driver, but in order to do so he needs to buy a car first. Shannon decides to make a deal with an old mobster friend named Bernie (Albert Brooks) who gives him the money to buy the car. Bernie also has an associate, Nino (Ron Perlman), a New York Jewish mobster who broke Shannon`s pelvis in the past for trying to overcharge him for a job he had done. Differences settled however they all decide to put their money on the driver, who is a quiet fellow who spends some nights as a wheelman on heist jobs. He is very professional about it. He soon begins a friendship with a neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos) and the relationship seems to slowly develop into a romantic one until Irene`s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) returns home from prison. Standard promises to leave his past life behind him, but he owes a lot of money to some people back in prison who offered their protection in exchange. Now Standard is forced to accept a heist or else his family will be in great danger. The driver finds out about the threat and decides to help Standard, but something goes wrong in the heist and the movie develops violently from that point forward. 

 

I can`t help but repeating myself when I say this was a great film. Ryan Gosling really gives one of the year`s best performances and his character is really intriguing. Gosling is a smart actor, he knows what roles to accept and he makes the best of them. In Drive he was given a really great script that allowed him to show off his full potential. The character is so central to the film that Gosling basically carries the movie, although the supporting cast was also great. Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks were great in their roles, and Carey Mulligan also had great chemistry with Gosling. Their relationship felt very real and nothing felt forced. Drive isn’t your typical Hollywood action film, it`s more of an indie film, and a dark one. There is a lot of violence, some strong scenes, so it might not be for everyone. I really enjoyed it and thought it was one of the best arthouse action films I`ve seen in a long time. Last year I was blown away by Affleck`s action film, The Town, but this year Drive manages to surpass it. Gosling`s character reminded me a lot of De Niro en Taxi Driver; he is just that good. The action scenes were also very well choreographed and there were some great driving scenes, although the best thing about the movie was the character driven story. I also enjoyed the soundtrack of the film which felt retro. Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (known for The Pusher trilogy) did a great job with this film, and Hossein Amini deserves a nomination for his screenplay adaptation of James Sallis`s book. Drive is one of the best films of the year. 

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My Review: Hellboy II The Golden Army (7/10)

¨The humans... the humans have forgotten the gods, destroyed the earth, and for what? Parking lots? Shopping malls? Greed had burned a hole in their hearts that will never be filled! They will never have enough!¨

(7/10)Guillermo del Toro is one of the best foreign directors at the moment and with hits such as this one he can even be considered along with the best Hollywood directors. His followup to the first Hellboy is even better than the original. Del Toro creates a world very similar to the one he created in Pan`s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) with several mythical creatures living amongst humans and hiding underground. The world that del Toro creates is just fascinating and it captivates your attention from the beginning. He just has an incredible imagination and is able to make these creatures look real. The plot is very immaginative and it absolutely works in a movie that has a main character like Hellboy. This film seemed more similar to what Peter Jackson did in the Lord of the Ring trilogy than with what del Toro had done in the first Hellboy. It really doesn`t make a difference whether not you haven`t seen the first part because the movie works on its own. After watching Hellboy II, I`m really looking forward with what del Toro will be doing with The Hobit next year because of his capacity of creating such wonderful imagery and visuals, and he is a great storyteller as well.

Once again Ron Perlman plays the role of Hellboy to perfection like he did the first time around. He is a very likeable character with strong feelings for Liz (who is also brilliantly played by Selma Blair) and cats as well. Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) also returns for the sequel and the three continue to work as a team for the bureau of paranormal research. Their involvement with the government is unknown by the public and Hellboy dreams of one day being able to receive the recognition he deserves for saving the world time after time. His boss is always covering up his tracks and trying to keep the team private, but after a sort of intentional incident Hellboy is seen by the public and he becomes a public figure along with his team. We all know the media isn`t nice, and they weren`t with Hellboy either. This is where one of the new characters comes to play. Johan Krauss (James Dodd and voiced by Seth MacFarlane) comes to fill in for the boss and do what he couldn`t which was to control Hellboy. Krauss is probably the best addition to the team and most of the laughs come from his character. It was a risky move but it worked for the best. Luke Goss plays the villain: Prince Nuada. His character breaks the truce between humans and mythical creatures because he believes humans aren`t living up to their bargain as they continue to destroy nature and these creatures are running out of room to live in (the green message all over again). His twin sister, Princess Nuada is played byAnna Walton and she decides to look for help in order to stop her brother from calling the Golden Army which will obey the ruler of the crown which has been divided into three parts as a truce between creatures and mankind. The Prince is searching for the three parts in order to rise the army, but his sister is trying to stop him and she looks for help from the bureau.

Hellboy II works because of the great immagery that del Toro uses and because of the action mixed with comedy coming from his lead characters such as Hellboy and Johan Krauss. The movie is very fast paced and the two hours go by quickly. I found this movie much more entertaining than the first one and it was much better than what I had expected. Del Toro also manages to throw some romance into the mix as well as we have Hellboy and Abe singing drunk one night ¨I can`t smile without you.¨ The love Hellboy has for Liz is what fuels him and we saw it in the first movie. But now Abe has also fallen for the princess and he does some crazy things in the name of love as well. There are very few directors who can pull all these things together and del Toro does it very well because he is a great storyteller with a lot of imagination and craft for his work. The movie is very entertaining and really worth a watch, especially if you are into these sort of fantasy movies.