Giant robots! There you go. Review over. Honestly, what more is there to say really? Any science fiction love should appreciate the movie just for that. Admittedly though, I was very reluctant to go see this movie at first. It just looked like it was ripping off some of my favorite anime's and putting an American twist on it. Funny enough, it literally took Hideo Kojima's approval for me to finally decide to go see it.
The movie starts off pretty quickly, going into detail about how the whole conflict with the monsters got started. Honestly, I just thought it was another preview for another movie. It all goes by pretty quick too, but not so much that you miss the gist of it. Monsters randomly appear out of the ocean one day, Godzilla style and start attacking our cities. The UN funds a project to build giant robots in order to fight against said monsters, but things don't go so well in the beginning, because it turns out the mechs are too much for one person to pilot. That's why they need pilots in the cockpit, unlike what we see in anime's like Gundam and Robotech.
The visuals in this movie are beyond amazing. I remember seeing Transformers for the first time, and thinking "This is CG at its peak. There's no way things can ever get better." Boy was I wrong. As someone who's studied computer animation, I couldn't help but try to figure out how some of these affects were done. Designing and moving the mechs, sure. You've got a ton of teamsaround who specialize in this stuff, but most of the fights take place in the water. Ask just about any computer animator. CG water is work! But somehow they had everything down pact. When these monsters rise up from the water, and the mechs are dropped in there and run through it, the water just reacts so well, giving you just a clear idea these things are HUGE!
The fights are really good as well. Most reviews complain that there's not a good enough balance between the fights and downtime for the story, but these fights are pretty long. You'd think it'd a simple jump in, punch, and there fight's over, but there's a lot that goes into these fights. Things get smashed, arms are ripped off, and bodies go flying. Even after all that, there's still more to come, just cause.
The story's pretty darn dramatic too, which really isn't something to expect from a summer blockbuster. Seriously. Nothing goes well for the humans, straight from the start.There is still some good humor though, some perfect delivery here and there, while other times a bit forced, but it all blends really well in the end. I've never actually seen any movies with any of these actors before, except for Idris Elba in Thor and Ron Perlman in Blade II, but I found every performance to be great. Often there's that one actor I'm just anxious to see die, just because their performance is so dull, but everyone did really well.
Guillermo del Toro is just a genious, and clearly loves the material he's working with. People need to start taking hints from this guy! This is how you make a sci-fi movie. Not only that, but an original one! How many movies do we get nowadays that's not just a remake, adaption, or a sequel? How many of them actually turn out to be good!? Yeah, not that many. We need more! Preferebly some with more giant robots? Well whatever we get, good luck trying to make better than this.
Oh yeah.There's a tie-in videogame, buuuut, it's not so good.
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