On Dec. 12, Warner Bros. Pictures released the first trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s long-waited “Pacific Rim,” the director who created the rich visual worlds of “Hellboy” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
The “Pacfic Rim” trailer now provides fans with a look at what del Toro envisions for his sci-fi action movie. It promises more of the spectacle and unique creatures fans have come to expect from the director’s films.
“Pacific Rim” develops around a simple but provocative concept, reflected in the movie’s tagline: “To kill monsters, we made monsters.”
“Pacific Rim” is set in the near future. It is a world taken over by Kaiju, giant monsters that have arisen from the sea. To attempt to defeat the Kaiju humanity has created Jaegers, robots controlled by two human pilots.
Such an epic battle needs heroes, and “Pacific Rim” offers former pilot Raleigh Antrobus (Charlie Hunnam, “Sons of Anarchy”) and inexperienced trainee Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi, “Babel”). The two must work together, operating an old but legendary Jaeger in hopes of defeating the Kaiju and stopping the apocalypse.
If the trailer is any indication, the movie will develop its classic sci-fi elements, focusing on a great battle between the organic and the mechanical, yet remain discernibly del Toro in look.
The “Pacific Rim” trailer, released via Apple Movie Trailers, takes viewers into del Toro’s world and in the middle of the chaos that drives the conflict. An air raid announces the arrival of the Kaiju, which are introduced in a voice-over by Hunnam’s pilot.
“We always thought alien life would come from the stars,” Antrobus says. “But it came from deep beneath the sea, a portal between dimensions in the Pacific Ocean. Something out there had discovered us.”
He then goes on to establish humanity’s fighting spirit, a call to rousing action that is later echoed by military leader Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba, “The Wire,” “Prometheus”).
“Today, at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen to believe in each other,” Pentecost says. “Today, we face the monsters that are at our door. Today, we are canceling the apocalypse.”
And of course, we are introduced to both the Kaiju and the Jaeger in all their monstrous glory, as well as the futuristic world in which they exist.
There are elements in “Pacific Rim” – in its general set-up – that might remind science-fiction fans of classic Japanese monster movies. It’s worth noting, though, that del Toro told the L.A. Times in August he avoided watching such movies in order to “do something fresh, something new that at the same time was conscious of the heritage, but not a pastiche or an homage or a greatest hits of everything.”
“Pacific Rim” stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
“Pacific Rim” will be released to movie theaters on July 12, 2013.
Pittsburgh Movie Examiner: Facebook • Twitter
