Pacific Rim Is The Dullest Movie You’ll Ever See About Giant Robots Fighting Sea Monsters

PACIFIC RIM
These characters are so. Fucking. Boring.

Pacific Rim (2013)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro
131 min.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

2013 was supposed to be the year that saved big screen science fiction. When this summer’s lineup began filling out, I had more anticipation for this movie season than I’d had in years. Names were popping up like Blomkamp, del Toro, Shyamalan (fuck the haters), Abrams, Cuarón, Wright (and Pegg and Frost), and startlingly, there seemed to be more original properties on the horizon than sequels/adaptations: Elysium, After Earth, Gravity, Pacific Rim, Oblivion, Ender’s Game, Star Trek Into Darkness, The World’s End, etcetera. From what I saw of the trailers, these movies didn’t look like your typical disaster porn invasion movies, á la, Battle: Los Angeles or Transformers (except Pacific Rim, though its premise justifies, and even necessitates it) nor were they part of the insufferably relentless deluge of Marvel/DC sequels and spinoffs (except Into Darkness, whose trailers gave it the tone of a Dark Knight movie; y’all looking forward to Thor: The Dark World?). I loved the designs I saw in the Oblivion trailer, I liked the visual approaches of After Earth and Ender’s Game, and I love the idea of Sandra Bullock leading a stranded-in-space drama.
Continue reading Pacific Rim Is The Dullest Movie You’ll Ever See About Giant Robots Fighting Sea Monsters

After Earth: Blame Smith, Not Shyamalan

after2


After Earth (2013)
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay by Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan
Story by Will Smith
100 min.

Tommy Lee Jones once said that the secret to being funny is standing next to Will Smith.  Like any leading man, Smith is classically handsome, cut from steel, infinitely charming, and possesses an inexplicable charisma that glues your eyes to him.  His son does not.  Jaden Smith’s eyes are like Vin Diesel’s—boring and lifeless.  And his acting is about ten billion times worse.
Continue reading After Earth: Blame Smith, Not Shyamalan