My Review: 47 Ronin (4/10)

"I will search for you through 1000 worlds and 10000 lifetimes!"

If it weren't for the title I would have never guessed this film was about 47 Ronin (47 disgraced samurais who have failed their master), because we barely get some character development from two of them (and one technically isn't a ronin). The rest of the Ronin are simply placed in the background for the action scenes, but they are completely ignored. Something similar happened in 300, but at least that film had incredible action scenes and a memorable lead performance from Gerard Butler who engaged its audience. It's not the case here with Keanu Reeves and Hiroyuki Sanada who fail to draw us into their world. This hurts the action scenes because we never really care for the outcome of these men. When I first saw the poster for 47 Ronin I thought this might be a cool movie, but when I watched the trailer I dropped any expectations I might've had. Not even the cool looking villains in the poster had much screen time and every single character in this film is one dimensional. This was a very dull fantasy film despite its subject matter and its two hour runtime began to take its toll on me considering it was very poorly paced. The film begins with a prologue, setting up the action, but I really don't know when the prologue ended and when the actual story began because it took forever to set up the plot. It's a shame this film was so poorly realized because first time director, Carl Rinsch, was given a huge budget to work with. Despite the gorgeous landscape there was nothing extraordinary about the action scenes and this is one of those movies that will be quickly forgotten.

Screenwriters Chris Morgan (from the Fast and Furious franchise) and Hossein Amini (Drive) based this screenplay on one of Japan's most endearing folktales. The story begins with a prologue explaining the code of the samurai and the feudal situation of ancient Japan. Then we are introduced to Lord Asano (Min Tanaka) of Ako who finds a young half-breed named Kai in the forest and takes him back home. Several years later, Kai (Keanu Reeves), who is now a grown man, continues to serve under Lord Asano helping the samurai led by Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada) protect Ako from mystic creatures. While hosting a tournament, as a welcoming for the Shogun in Ako, Lord Asano is bewitched into hurting Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano) of Nagato. Lord Asano didn't realize his actions were induced by a Witch (Rinko Kikuchi) who was on Lord Kira's side, and he is forced to take his own life by the Shogun. The samurais are punished and disgraced to live as ronin outside of Ako and Kai is sold as a slave, while Lord Kira is named ruler of Ako. In order to restore their honor, Kai and the disgraced samurais embark on a dangerous quest to avenge their master's death.

I'm sorry if the plot description feels a bit rushed and all over the place but that was just the way everything was presented in this film. The characters are one dimensional and the plot simply moves from one sequence to the next without feeling cohesive. This is perhaps why I felt the pace was so tedious because we never get any time to actually get to know any of the characters or their motivations. It doesn't matter how beautiful the landscape or set pieces were, the action scenes simply didn't engage me. Everything about this film felt uninspired and dull. 47 Ronin is a disgrace to Japan's classic legend and I'm sure nobody back home is proud of this film. The critic for Newsday, Rafer Guzman, described this film so well I feel the need to quote him: "47 Ronin would have been more fun if it kept swinging its sword instead of falling on it." Skip this movie, it's not as cool as the poster makes you believe it is.

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).