10/11/14 (Part One): Getting the Cold Shoulder From Mother Nature

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31 Days of Halloween, Alaska, Arctic setting, auteur theory, cinema, co-writers, Connie Britton, environmental-themed horror, environmentalism, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, global warming, horror, horror film, horror films, indie films, isolation, James Le Gros, Jamie Harrold, Joanne Shenandoah, John Carpenter, Kevin Corrigan, Larry Fessenden, Movies, oil riggers, Pato Hoffmann, Robert Leaver, Ron Perlman, The Last Winter, The Thing, writer-director-producer-actor, Zach Gilford

There’s something about the desolate wasteland of an Arctic landscape that just makes for a good horror story. Lovecraft knew it…Carpenter knew it…hell, Jack London knew it, if you think about it. The combination of harsh living conditions, relentless weather, isolation and vast, untouched frontier is the perfect setting for putting humanity under the microscope and seeing what squirms around. The infinite, stark surroundings could hide anything from ancient, alien civilizations to rampaging monsters to serial killers or it could just be the perfect location to allow festering paranoia, jealousy, anger and fear to bubble to the surface and turn humans, ourselves, into our own kind of monster.

Over the years, a handful of films have used the unforgiving Arctic climes as incubators for their particular brand of terror, most notably John Carpenter’s The Thing (1980), which is sort of the grand-daddy for this little sub-genre, which is fitting considering that Howard Hawks’ The Thing From Another World (1951) is the great-grand-daddy of frigid fright films. Filmmakers have used the cold wastelands as homes for cannibals, aliens, mutated creatures, ghosts…even Frankenstein’s monster took up residency there, for a while. When done right, I don’t think that there’s anything quite as frightening as a cold-bound horror film unless it’s a space-bound one: chalk it up to the isolation factor or the notion that either location seems to feature a lot of “rocks” that we haven’t looked under, leading to plenty of unknown squirmy things just waiting to pop out and say hi.

Veteran writer-producer-actor-director and all-around Renaissance man Larry Fessenden has had quite the career. As an actor, he’s one of those quirky characters that you might not recognize by name but you’ll definitely recognize by sight: he’s been in everything from mainstream films like Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999) to indie films like Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers (2005) to genre films like Session 9 (2001). He’s produced outstanding movies like I Sell the Dead (2008), The House of the Devil (2009)and Stake Land (2010) and has directed and written six full length films, thus far, as well as a slew of shorts, videos and a segment in the “Fear Itself” TV series. Over the years, I’ve found Fessenden to be one of the most uncompromising, talented and just flat-out cool voices in independent cinema, the kind of filmmaker like Ben Wheatley or Nicholas Winding Refn who sells me on a film by name alone. To paraphrase that old Field of Dreams (1989) chestnut: if Fessenden films it, I’ll be there. His entry in the frozen-wasteland sweepstakes, 2006’s The Last Winter, stands as another high point in an already exceptional filmography: it’s not quite The Thing but it’s one mighty impressive film, nonetheless, and easily one of my favorites.

The Last Winter begins by informing us that North Industries will begin to drill for oil in a previously untapped part of Alaska, due to the loosening of environmental restrictions. To that end, Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) shows up at North’s drilling camp in order to check on their progress. Despite having an expert team, including Abby (Connie Britton), Motor (Kevin Corrigan), Maxwell (Zach Gilford), Lee (Pato Hoffmann) and Dawn (Joanne Shenandoah), the drilling site has hit a bit of a snag: conditions in the area aren’t cold enough to drill and support their heavy equipment, thanks to unseasonably warmth weather. Environmental impact expert James Hoffman (James Le Gros) and his assistant, Elliot (Jamie Harrold), want Ed and his team to put the brakes on their operation but there are deadlines involved and lots of money to be made, so Ed doesn’t pay the “hippie” much attention.

The situation goes from bad to worse, however, when Maxwell begins to act strange: he fancies that he hears strange sounds out in the freezing wasteland and seems to be able to see ghostly visions that might or might not be herds of phantom elk stampeding through the landscape. He goes out one night to investigate an isolated test well and doesn’t return: the rest of the group frantically hunt for Maxwell but turn up empty-handed. When Maxwell comes wandering back into camp sometime later, however, relief turns into more worry: the young man is different now, more distant and decidedly more strange. He begins to tell everyone that they’re grave-robbers, stealing the “dead bodies” of animals and plants that have been dead for millions of years. At some point, he warns them, the oil will get tired of being taken advantage of. At some point, it won’t passively wait to be taken from the ground: it will rise up, on its own, and come to pass horrible judgment on the masses of humanity for their environmental crimes.

The rest of the group, including the decidedly green Hoffman, think that Maxwell must have a screw loose. When unexpected things keep happening at the camp site, however, the team is faced with a truly terrifying prospect: perhaps Maxwell is right and Mother Earth really is rising up to take revenge on her human parasites. As the frozen wasteland and whatever it hides begins to claim more victims, paranoia and fear run rampant through the camp. Will any of the team make it back to civilization or will the stunningly beautiful and harsh frozen landscape become their final resting place?

One of the many criticisms that are often hurled at horror films is their relative lack of relevance to our daily lives: a mask-wearing psycho may mean something to us in a figurative sense but it doesn’t mean a whole lot on a personal sense, unless one happens to actually live in Haddonfield or Springwood. Fessenden’s film corrects this complaint by actually being about something: both overtly and covertly, The Last Winter is a treatise on the effects of global warming on this big globe of ours. The issue, of course, is a divisive one, having morphed from a scientific concern into a political one thanks to the best efforts of lobbyists and activists on both sides. Fessenden is not interesting in the political ramifications of the issue, however, unless in the most general way (“tree-huggers vs average Joes”). On the contrary, he tackles the issue as a purely scientific fact: Hoffman tests the temperatures, they’re warmer than they used to be, the ice is obviously thinner than it was and it’s affecting how they can transport their equipment. That’s pretty much it. In a way, The Last Winter isn’t so much a cautionary tale (“If we don’t stop now, this will be our fate”) as it is a resolved one (“It’s already too late, so let’s see what happens next”).

Along with this more involved storyline, Fessenden and co-writer Robert Leaver have come up with a pretty solid little script, full of some nice characterizations and snappy dialogue. Carpenter’s The Thing taught us that the ensemble cast is key in something like this and Fessenden stacks his deck pretty high: Perlman, Le Gros, Britton and Corrigan are all exceptional character actors and each of them brings their A-games to the film. Perlman, in particular, is in great form: I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a bad performance from the guy, to be honest, but there’s something about the character of Ed that lets Perlman flex a few different acting muscles this time around. Ed tows the company line, sure, but he’s not a sleazy, uber-villain like Paul Reiser’s Carter Burke from Aliens (1986): he genuinely cares about his crew although he’s got his own set of orders to follow. There’s also a nice romantic triangle established between Ed, James and Abby which allows for a little more intimate emotions than we normally get from the genre great.

Craftwise, The Last Winter is a pretty stunning production: the cinematography is flawless and handily establishes just how minuscule and insignificant these humans are against their stark, white landscape. While this isn’t really an effects-heavy film, it manages to pull off its setpieces with suitable aplomb: the climatic encounter features a pretty interesting creature design which, although nothing compared to Bottin’s landmark effects work from The Thing, is still miles above similar-budgeted genre fare. The score and sound design help play an integral part in the production, amping up tension at every corner and the film’s editing (courtesy of Fessenden) is unfussy and suits the material to a tee. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the ending, which manages to reference another environmental “horror” film, Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977), and provides a suitably powerful, if appropriately vague, conclusion to the narrative.

I first saw The Last Winter when it was originally released and fell in love with it almost immediately. Indeed, it nearly serves as a textbook for my personal notions of how to make a successful horror film: find a nicely evocative location, populate your film with some interesting, three-dimensional characters, keep the tension high and don’t treat your audience like morons. Fessenden has managed to make a career out of following these simple rules, which will always give him a special place in my heart. If you love frozen horror films, environmentally themed genre movies or just enjoy a good movie, in general, The Last Winter should fit the bill nicely. As humans, we may argue and disagree with just everything our fellow humans say and do but we should all be able to recognize quality when we see it. Under any set of guidelines, The Last Winter is quality entertainment, indeed.

 

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7/19/14 (Part Two): Sucker’s Bet

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13 Sins, bad cops, bad decisions, brothers, cinema, conspiracy theories, corrupt law enforcement, Daniel Stamm, deadly games, desperate times, Devon Graye, dysfunctional family, Elliot Brindle, film reviews, films, horror films, Mark Webber, Movies, Pruitt Taylor Vance, remakes, Ron Perlman, Rutina Wesley, The Game, The Last Exorcism, Tom Bower, writer-director

Just what, exactly, would you be willing to do for complete financial freedom? It’s an interesting question, especially in this day and age where any and everyone seem desperate to secure their “15 minutes of fame” by any means necessary. The formerly notorious but now (presumably) passe game show, Fear Factor, sought to answer this question with a variety of stunts and “dares,” although the rewards usually fell far short of the aforementioned “complete financial freedom” angle. In this case, contestants would eat reindeer testicles, sit in glass boxes filled with tarantulas and perform “hazardous” stunts (hazardous, of course, being a relative term when network television takes as many precautions as humanly possible to avoid on-air death), all for a cash prize that, if memory serves correctly, was nowhere near the amount required to make someone financially independent.

In the case of Fear Factor, people were willing to do some pretty icky things (eating balut, as far as I’m concerned, will always be a deal-breaker) but everything was undertaken with the assurance (again, born of network television, the “safe word” of the entertainment industry) that no harm could really befall the contestants or those around them: the very worst that could happen would be someone puking, which falls pretty low on the “soul-shattering” scale. What if the safety nets of polite society were removed, however? What if the stakes were raised and someone were actually offered complete financial security in exchange for completing a series of ever more heinous tasks? Where would we end up drawing the line? Would we draw a line? These are the questions that writer/director Daniel Stamm asks in 13 Sins (2014), a remake of the earlier Thai film 13: Game of Death (2006). When basic morality stands in the way of a truly life-changing amount of money, is the world really as black and white as we wish it were? Or are the obvious shades of gray that fill the margins more terrifying than any potential monster under the bed?

After a truly dynamic, disturbing opening that introduces us to the closing moves of a previous “game,” 13 Sins begins proper by introducing us to our hero, the put-upon sad-sack known as Elliot Brindle (Mark Webber). As far as problems go, Elliot has a fairly full plate: he’s just about to get married to his pregnant fiancée, Shelby (Rutina Wesley), while also taking care of his mentally disabled brother, Michael (Devon Graye) and his bitter, racist, hateful father (Tom Bower). To make everything better, Elliot has just been fired from his job as an insurance salesman (he isn’t able to “do what it takes,” which is about as obvious as the foreshadowing really gets), his brother is getting kicked out of his care facility and his father is getting kicked out of his retirement home. Holy insurmountable problems, Batman! To whit: Elliot now has no income, an expensive wedding to take care of and needs to move his vile father (Shelby happens to be black, which makes her a constant target for the father’s virulent racism) and loving but “challenging” brother into his small home. For most people, these might be the kind of issues that would completely crush and destroy someone’s spirit. Turns out, Elliot may just be one of those kind of folks, after all.

Our hero’s luck changes, however, when he gets a mysterious phone call while stopped at a deserted intersection in the middle of the night. The unknown, excessively jovial person on the other end of the line tells Elliot that he has the opportunity to be on a game show: when Elliot, rightfully, expresses his disbelief, the caller proceeds to reveal several aspects about Elliot’s personal life that no one should really know. He then tells Elliot to swat the pesky fly that’s currently bopping around his car: if he does, he’ll automatically earn $1000. After swatting the fly, Elliot receives a text message that alerts him to the successful completion of Task 1. A follow-up calls gives Elliot his next task: eat the dead fly and receive $3622, the exact amount that Shelby owes on her credit card. This would make an awfully nice wedding present, according to the voice, and a perfect way to begin Elliot and Shelby’s life as a married couple.

After getting home and checking his bank account, Elliot realizes that the caller isn’t joking: $1000 has recently been deposited to his account. After roughly a second of forethought, Elliot eats the fly, completing Task 2 and receiving his next payment. At this point, the mysterious caller fills him in on the rest of the details: Elliot must complete a total of thirteen excessively more difficult tasks, each task worth an increasingly large sum of money, all the way up to the 13th task, which will reward Elliot with a “life-changing amount of money.” Failure to complete any task will result in “losing it all,” including all money won up to that point, as will trying to interfere with the game in any way. Telling anyone about the game, whether his loving fiancée or law enforcement officials, will also result in a loss: according to the voice, the game is solely Elliot’s to win (or lose). If he wins, Elliot and Shelby will begin their new life on their own terms. If he loses, well…how much worse off could he get? Elliot completes his registration process by facing the bathroom window and intoning “I will dance with the golden toad”: with that, the game is afoot…and Elliot’s fate is sealed.

The kicker, of course, is that Elliot really has no idea how bad things will get until the shit hits the proverbial fan. While the initial tasks seem harmless, if decidedly odd (killing and eating a fly may be nasty but it doesn’t exactly turn someone into Ed Gein), the follow-up tasks find Elliot going down an increasingly grim rabbit hole of public disturbance and reprehensible behavior: making a child cry, burning up a church’s nativity scene (handcrafted by blind children, naturally), getting revenge on a childhood bully. As Elliot completes the increasingly more unpleasant tasks, he must take great pains to keep Shelby, Michael and his father from figuring out what’s going on. Things become even more complicated when a gruff, no-nonsense police detective (Ron Perlman) begins investigating Elliot’s various “crimes.” As the caller continually reminds Elliot, he’s now so far into the game that winning it is the only way out: otherwise, he’ll end up serving some pretty decent jail time for his various “crimes against humanity.”

Elliot is fundamentally a good guy, however, and really just wants to provide for his family under some pretty difficult circumstances. As a nice guy, he begins to balk at some of the tasks but an odd thing begins to happen: as Elliot completes more and more tasks, he begins to get a bit…well, acclimated, to the whole thing. He begins to swagger around and get back some of his old self-confidence. While Elliot may not be doing particularly nice things, he is, at the very least, taking direct steps to dig his way out of the financial hole he’s buried in. He’s doing what all of us would like to do: pulling himself up by his own bootstraps and initiative. Once the tasks take a horrifying turn, however, Elliot is left with a very basic but all-important question: what does it benefit a man to gain it all if he loses his very humanity, in the process? As his life spirals completely out of control and Elliot comes ever closer to that feared 13th Task, he will quickly learn that there are more than one way to play any game. And, sometimes, winning can be worse than losing.

While watching 13 Sins, I was constantly reminded of an old saying: “If this is the kind of thing you like, then you’re gonna love this.” In some ways, Stamm’s film is the very epitome of this ideal: certain people (myself included) will eat up the film’s concentrated nastiness with a spoon, whereas others will find the whole thing to be such a despicable little bit of coal-black misanthropy that they probably won’t make it past the first 10 minutes. To be fair, both viewpoints are completely valid: 13 Sins is absolutely not for everyone and anyone with a decidedly “sensitive” palette should approach this with extreme caution. While the film does go to some pretty intense places, gore-wise, it goes to some even more intense places, concept-wise, which will probably be the dividing line for most folks.

In many ways, the film acts as a sort of moral barometer, asking the audience just how far “too far” really is. I can think of very few people who would have significant moral quandaries over eating, much less killing, a fly. I even know plenty of people who might not balk at making an anonymous child cry (if you know who you are, for gods’ sake, keep your damn hand down!). Suffice to say, however, that I’m eternally grateful for not knowing anyone who could surf through all 13 tasks without feeling at least some sort of pang to the conscience area, especially once we get to the dreaded 13th task. This, then, is the film’s greatest coup and its biggest virtue: it sets up a slippery-slope of dubious actions that traps the viewer half-way down, like a Venus Fly Trap. As we find more and more ways to justify what goes on (I could do that, if I really tried…I could do that if I didn’t think about it…I could do that if I really had to…I could do that if I had absolutely no other choice), it becomes painfully clear that morality and the notion of “good vs evil” are much less concretely defined than many of us might have previously hoped. Even when one adds in the supposed assurances of organized religion, there’s still the unspoken notion that we would violate any and every taboo if only to safeguard our loved ones: hard-and-fast rules are all well and good until it’s your husband/wife/baby/parents/siblings/best friends on the chopping block. At that point, many of us might find ourselves rethinking long-held notions of right and wrong, arriving at a definition that’s a bit more conditional and less rigidly enforced.

But this is all, of course, almost completely academic: a film can worry us with moral quandaries until the cows come home (Are the cows properly treated? Have they been fed growth hormones and kept in tiny pens? Are we raising them simply to be slaughtered or do realize that all living creatures have inherent value as individuals? What if the cows can’t find their way home?) but still have as much impact as one of those old videos from high school health classes. How does 13 Sins hold up as an actual film? Does it work as both a thriller/chiller and a thought-provoking dissertation on our modern malaise? For the most part, despite a few rather sizable plot holes, the answer is a resounding “absolutely.”

While I’ve never seen Stamm’s previous films (I’ve never cared enough for demonic possession films to have really paid The Last Exorcism (2010) much attention and his debut, A Necessary Death (2008) sounds intriguing but was, likewise, off my radar), 13 Sins is a thoroughly well-made, effective little film. Mark Webber channels the working-class relateability of someone like Sam Rockwell in his portrayal of Elliot, which makes it much easier to empathize with his character’s oftentimes terrible decision-making. Devon Graye is excellent as the developmentally-disabled Michael, managing to make the character seem less stereotypical than might previously be possible for a character of this type in a genre film. Perlman, of course, is spectacular but when is the guy ever bad? Even if he were phoning in the performance (which he doesn’t), Perlman would be an utterly magnetic, charismatic presence: there’s one throwaway bit where he sticks his tongue out at a little girl that manages to be hit so many character “buttons” at one time that it’s kind of ridiculous…in a completely badass way, of course. My big complaint with Perlman’s performance in 13 Sins is the same from any film that he doesn’t star in: there’s way too little of him here, although what’s here is suitably excellent. The rest of the cast, from Tom Bower’s obnoxious father to Rutina Wesley’s eternally faithful, if utterly confused, Shelby provide great support for Webber but, ultimately, this is his film and his journey to make.

From a production standpoint, 13 Sins is top-notch: while the film often has a glossy, heavily produced look, the subject matter is pure exploitation, taking a certain perverse glee in presenting a raft of unpleasant situations in as visually appealing a way as possible. When they saw an arm off in the film, it looks great, even if the scene is so protracted as to practically demand nausea: it’s the film’s great blessing (curse?) that everything is delivered in as hyper-realistic a way as possible, even as the scenarios become increasingly fanciful and “unrealistic.”

Since 13 Sins is, technically, a mystery (at least in the same vein as Fincher’s The Game (1997)), the script becomes all-important and Stamm (working with co-writer David Birke) has crafted a particularly smart, strong foundation. While I found the ultimate resolution to be a little problematic (without going into much detail, it bothered me that Elliot didn’t think through the ultimate ramifications of his final bit of revenge: could he have really been that short-sighted?), the plot is exceedingly tight. The tendency to group certain tasks together felt a little arbitrary and more than a little lazy, on occasion (Wait…we really have to think up 13 different tasks? What if we just came up with…I dunno…11 or so and just fudged the rest?) and there were a few elements that seemed unnecessarily vague (I still have no idea what the 5th Task entailed, although I’m pretty sure the filmmakers didn’t, either) but these are, ultimately, pretty small quibbles. When 13 Sins works, it works amazingly well, provided the same sort of gut-punch, visceral reaction that I had to the first Saw (2004). When it doesn’t work, it’s a quick-paced, highly entertaining and suitably sleazy thriller: in my book, that’s kind of a win-win situation.

Ultimately, 13 Sins, like American Mary (2012), is one of those films that is easy for me to like but difficult for me to recommend. While the subject matter is certainly less immediately reprehensible than the body modification/torture scenarios of American Mary, I can’t help but feel that many viewers will feel completely shut out of the pitch-black heart that beats at the center of 13 Sins. In many ways, Stamm’s film is holding a cracked fun house mirror up to society and asking us if we like what we see: in a day and age where, literally, “anything goes,” Stamm asks us to reconsider that notion just a little further. After all, you might be willing to do just about anything to provide yourself with a viable future but how far are you actually willing to go to test that hypothesis? Killing that fly is a small step, sure, but it’s still the first step: at this point, what step are we all on and how far will we go before we say “enough is enough?”

4/14/14: When Charlies Attack

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action-adventure, apocalyptic, auteur theory, Charlie Day, Charlie Hunam, Chuck Hansen, cinema, Cronos, drifting, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, giant monsters, giant robots, giant robots fighting giant monsters, Godzilla, Guillermo del Toro, Hannibal Chau, Hellboy, Idris Elba, Jaeger, Kaiju, King Kong, Max Martini, Movies, Newton Geiszler, ocean combat, Pacific Rim, Ray Harryhausen, Rinko Kikuchi, Rob Kazinsky, Ron Perlman, sci-fi, special-effects extravaganza, Stacker Pentecost

If one wants spectacle in their films, can there be any greater way to achieve it than by having giant things duke it out while the terrified masses of humanity watch helplessly? Since the golden age of cinema, audiences have thrilled to gargantuas like King Kong, Godzilla or any number of Ray Harryhausen’s iconic stop-motion creations. There’s something about watching a gorilla the size of a skyscraper throw elbows at a toothy dinosaur, something that seems to cut beyond notions of story and right into the primal: this is storytelling stripped back to its childhood, sandbox essence. While technology (and patience levels) may have changed since those glory days of guys in suits stomping about miniature cities, the public’s thirst for spectacle seems just as strong as ever. And if there’s one modern director who knows a thing or two about spectacle, it would definitely have to be Guillermo del Toro.

Although he began his career with his most subdued film (1993’s Cronos, which still stands as my favorite del Toro film), del Toro quickly moved into the realm of big-budget spectacle films with Blade II (2002), before clinching his spot in fan-boy history with his all-in adaptation of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy (2004). Hellboy, while filled with endlessly inventive, frequently stunning imagery, was also stuffed to bursting with some of the most interesting characters in parade through a film since the glory days of Star Wars, not least of which was Ron Perlman’s epic performance as the big red guy. Although his next film, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), would split the difference between the more subtle emotional beats of Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone (2001) with the eye-popping imagery of Hellboy, it was a character-heavy piece that showed del Toro hadn’t lost sight of the human actors on his phantasmagorical stages. A return to Hellboy, in 2008, would yield an even bigger, more epic version of the original film, although there seemed to be slightly more focus on the effects and imagery than on the characterizations.

When I heard that del Toro’s follow-up to Hellboy 2 was going to be an original film about giant robots fighting giant monsters, I’ll admit that I was conflicted. On the one hand, my primal self wants nothing more than to see giants things kick the ever-loving crap out of each other…that’s just a given. On the other hand, I don’t really find myself particularly drawn to mega-budget spectacle films anymore: even something like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptation grew tiring, for me at least, and I’ve studiously avoided the various tent-pole pics like Battle: L.A, Battleship and Ender’s Game that have cropped up lately. Since del Toro seemed to be moving further from his characters and more into the spectacle of it all, would Pacific Rim end up being a delicious but empty fistful of cotton-candy? As it turned out, the answer was “yes”…but man…that cotton candy…

Pacific Rim jumps right into the thick of things by bringing us up to speed on the state of this particular version of reality: gigantic, Chthonic monsters called Kaiju have been popping out of the office, bent on destroying mankind. As defense, humans create Jaegers, which are basically giant robots that require two pilots, both of whom are psychically linked to each other and their custom-made Voltrons. These lead to giant melees where giant, tentacled monstrosities get pounded into submission by a multinational coalition of Jaegers, including Russian, Australian and American versions. Raleigh (Charlie Hunam) and Yancy Becket (Diego Klattenhoff) are brothers who also happen to be super-close and the best in the Jaeger biz: if you don’t suspect a looming tragedy, you’re probably in the wrong multiplex room. Yancy dies, Raleigh vows never to fight again and the world keeps on spinning.

As usually happens in these situations, however, Raleigh ain’t gonna stay retired for long. He gets called back to the majors by his old commander Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba, with the best character name in the movie) and ends up partnered with a complete newbie: Mako (Rinko Kikuchi). Mako is untested but you just know that kid’s got potential. Something’s brewing, however, and the Kaiju seem to be up to something. The old methods might not be good enough now, but never fear: it’s always sunny at the Pac Rim, it turns out, because we have Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) to help. That’s right: good ol’ batshit Charlie shows up as…well, a pretty batshit scientist, to be honest. He ends up “drifting” with a Kaiju brain and gets the inside scoop on their plan: this is wholesale apocalypse, baby! Time to get some advice from Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman), suit-up, shit talk the Aussies, admire the Russians’ fashion sense and open a super-sized can of whoop-ass on these bio-luminescent goons. Stacker says it best: “Today, we’re cancelling the apocalypse.”

There’s obviously something inherently silly about any film that features giant monsters and giant robots wrestling: unless the proceedings are being filmed like a dour mumblecore snooze (which would be kinda awesome), you’re still dealing with giant monsters and giant robots wrestling. In and of itself, this isn’t really an issue: as previously mentioned, cinematic history is jam-packed with similar films. The big challenge, then, is to do something inherently different with the subject matter, something to make it stand out from the field of similar fare. On one hand, Pacific Rim was always going to have a leg up on the competition since the film is completely state-of-the art, featuring the finest effects work that money can buy. In that aspect, no prior film of this ilk can even stand next to Pac Rim: the 1954 version of Godzilla may as well have been from 1854. Del Toro has proven, time and again, that he’s particularly adept at shooting this kind of spectacle. He’s always seemed like a fan, first and foremost, and he shoots what similar fans want to see.

On the technical side, Pacific Rim is never short of marvels. The Kaiju are paragons of creature design, nightmarish, bio-luminescent beasts that seem to have been poured straight from H.P. Lovecraft’s fevered skull into our terrified world. They look truly unique, no mean feat in a jaded era where we’ve everything at least twice. As a lifelong horror/sci-fi, I couldn’t get enough of them and was already ready for the next appearance. In particular, a scene where a newborn monster chases Newton is so thrilling, so perfectly staged and executed that it could have been its own self-contained short. The Jaegers are no slouches, either, with the individual machines tailored to the various nations and their designs providing a real sense of heft and reality. Make no mistake about it, however: the entire film belongs to the Kaiju. If all elements of Pacific Rim could be considered del Toro’s children, each one unique and worthy of its own admiration, than the Kaiju are the obvious, over-achieving, doted on favorites…no one else even comes close in Papa’s heart.

This, of course, ends up being a massive problem in the grand scheme of things: Pacific Rim, while being one of the most gorgeous, thrilling action films I’ve seen in some time, also ends up being one of the emptiest. Character development is pretty much non-existent from the get-go. We get so little time with the brothers Becket at the beginning of the film that we just have to take it for granted that they were close, mostly because Raleigh says they were. Nearly everyone else in the film exist as generic types, with particular derision going to the ridiculous father-son Australian Jaeger pilots, Herc (Max Martini) and Chuck Hansen (Rob Kazinsky). Chuck is a ridiculously unlikable character, a sort of spiritual brother to the awful Johnny from Karate Kid: he’s all bluster, bullying, sneering and bad attitude. This really comes to a head in the scene where Herc and Chuck are supposed to share a tender moment: the tone is all over the place and it just comes across as parody. The poor Russians don’t get off much better, mostly reduced to thick “Da”s and outfits that look like they came out of Eddie Izzard’s Mystery Men wardrobe closet. Hunam isn’t terrible as Raleigh but he doesn’t seem to have much personality, which seems strange coming from an actor like Hunam: I don’t think he’s Brando, by any stretch, but the guy definitely seems to have a pulse on Sons of Anarchy…a little more of that fire would have been welcome here.

As can be expected, however, two actors take the football and run it to the next county: Charlie Day and Ron Perlman. I’m an avowed Perlman fanboy who thinks he can’t do anything wrong, is always perfect, yadda yadda yadda but even I have to admit that his performance as Hannibal Chau is something special. Chau is such a complete and total badass, such a funny, vibrant character that I really wish the film was about him fighting Kaiju singlehandedly. Not only does he get the best scenes in the film, he also gets a postscript that manages to one-up the films actual ending. Whether its due to their close working relationship or Perlman’s inherent awesomeness, del Toro always manages to wring great performances from him and Pacific Rim is no different.

Much more surprising, however, was Charlie Day’s turn as Dr. Geiszler. Even though you can see lots of It’s Always Sunny Charlie in the character, Day still manages to make the character his own. At first, I wasn’t ready to buy Day as a scientist any more than I would be to accept Johnny Knoxville as a certified public accountant. He really jumps in fearlessly, however, and makes every single acting choice seem as natural as breathing. Whether he’s doing one of those patented “Charlie freakouts” or bringing some of the quiet storm, Day is always a joy to watch in the film and always seems like he’s having the best day of his life ever. Good for him.

At the end of the day, however, I find myself needing to remind myself of something very important: this is still a film about giant monsters wrestling giant robots. For all of the movie’s subtext about immigration issues (they’re building a wall to keep out the Kaiju, you see, because they’re undesirables), the destructive nature of mankind (Mako’s flashback to the Kaiju attack she survived recalls images of the Hiroshima bombing) and the notion that newer isn’t always better (Raleigh’s Jaeger is analog, making him the perfect hero when a rampaging Kaiju knocks out the electrical grid, disabling the fancier, newer-model Jaegers), the film still comes down to one important element: robots fighting monsters. When the film is amazing, it’s unforgettable (a brief glimpse into the Kaiju’s apocalyptic world is so eye-popping that I hope to hell del Toro gets his At the Mountains of Madness production off the ground) and the whole thing is never less than entertaining. Too often, however, everything gets bogged down in banal dialogue (by the end, I was finishing nearly every line of dialogue, no mean feat on my first viewing of the film) and place-holder dramatics that seem designed merely to get us to the next Kaiju/Jaeger dust-up.

If, however, you are so inclined to watch a mega-budget spectacle about giant robots and giant monsters wrestling, than your first stop needs to be Pacific Rim. This may not be the best action/adventure film ever and certainly is nowhere near del Toro’s best (Hellboy still takes it out with one punch) but I can honestly say that it’s the absolute best film ever made about this particular subject. That is, of course, until del Toro decides to unleash Pacific Rim 2 on the world. As long as there’s plenty of Hannibal and Newton, they’ve already pre-sold at least one ticket.