ACTION; 2hr 11min
STARRING: Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba
Rumble ready: from left, Hunnam and Kikuchi
Bursting from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, underwater monsters, aka Kaiju, are up and at us. Bang goes San Francisco! Fighting back with even more bulk, scientists design ginormous robots, known as Jaegers, piloted from within by two daredevil humans. The cowboy crewmen hold their own at first, but by 2025 their winning streak is over and the Jaegers are officially cactus.
That’s where bolshie team leader Stacker Pentecost (Elba), his star pilot, Raleigh Becket (Hunnam), and Becket’s steel-lily second, Mako Mori (Kikuchi), come in. All three are physically and/or emotionally damaged, but with the future of humanity hanging by a thread, they either get their Jaeger Shinola together or we all perish horribly in the attempt.
Like that’s going to happen on director Guillermo del Toro’s watch! Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) takes bigger-as-better and runs riot with it: his machines are mythic, his bilious monsters are jellied madness and their ear-piercing face-offs are a huge, hot, hormonal mess. The puny humans hold their own but size has never mattered as much.
