Pacific Rim is a 2013 American military science fiction and monster film directed by Guillermo del Toro, with a screenplay written by Travis Beacham with del Toro and story written by Beacham. It is the first film in the Pacific Rim franchise. The film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman. The film is set in the future, when Earth is at war with the Kaiju, colossal sea monsters which have emerged from an interdimensional portal on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. To combat the monsters, humanity unites to create the Jaegers, gigantic humanoid mechas, each controlled by two co-pilots whose minds are joined by a mental link called the Drift.
Principal photography began on November 14, 2011, in Toronto and lasted through to April 2012. The film was produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was released on July 12, 2013, in 3D, RealD 3D, IMAX 3D and 4DX, receiving generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its performances, direction, storyline, action sequences, visual effects, musical score, and nostalgic style. While it underperformed at the box office in the United States, it was highly successful in other markets, thus becoming a box office success. It earned a worldwide total of $411 million—earning $136 million in China alone, its largest market—becoming Del Toro's most commercially successful film. The film is regarded as an homage to kaiju, mecha, and anime media.
A sequel titled Pacific Rim Uprising was released on March 23, 2018, with Universal Pictures as the film's distributor.
Plot
In 2013, colossal extraterrestrials called Kaiju emerge from an interdimensional portal called the Breach at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and begin to attack coastal cities along the Pacific Rim. In response, humanity constructs massive mecha called Jaegers; each is co-piloted by two or more people who share the mental stress of piloting the machine through a mental link called the Drift.
In 2020, brothers Yancy and Raleigh Becket pilot the Jaeger Gipsy Danger to defend Anchorage. A Kaiju severely damages Gipsy and kills Yancy. Raleigh manages to kill the Kaiju, but traumatized by his brother's death and the stress of solo-piloting the Jaeger, he quits the program.
Five years later, world leaders divert funding from the Jaeger program in favor of coastal defense walls due to resurgent Kaiju attacks and the rapid attrition of Jaegers. However, the walls are soon proven ineffective when a Kaiju breaks through the wall in Sydney before being brought down by Jaeger Striker Eureka, piloted by father-son duo Herc and Chuck Hansen. The remaining Jaegers are relocated to the Shatterdome in Hong Kong under Marshal Stacker Pentecost.
Raleigh, now working on constructing the wall, is convinced by Pentecost to rejoin the Jaeger program and is brought to Hong Kong, where he meets Mako Mori, director of the Jaeger restoration program. Only four Jaegers, including Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka, remain. Pentecost informs Raleigh of his plan to destroy the Breach by detonating a tactical nuclear weapon inside it.
Raleigh searches for a new co-pilot and finds Mako is compatible. During their first test in Gipsy Danger, Mako loses alignment while recalling a Kaiju attack in Tokyo that almost killed her, nearly discharging Gipsys plasma cannon inside the Shatterdome. Consequently, Pentecost suspends Mako. Raleigh protests, having seen through Mako's memories that Pentecost had adopted and raised Mako after her parents died in a Kaiju attack, and suggests that the real reason for Pentecost suspending Mako was to protect her, but Pentecost remains unswayed.
Pentecost consults Kaiju experts Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb. Hermann predicts that while Kaiju attacks will increase in frequency, the Breach will soon be stable enough to permit passage of the bomb. Disregarding Pentecost's orders, Newton drifts with a Kaiju's brain, learning that they are bioweapons created by an alien race to help colonize Earth. At Pentecost's instruction, Newton meets with Hannibal Chau, the leader of a black market organization selling Kaiju body parts. During the meeting, two Kaiju attack the city; Hannibal deduces that the aliens accessed Newton's memories during the drift, which prompted the two Kaiju to attack Hong Kong in search of him.
All remaining Jaegers aside from Gipsy Danger intervene, but two are destroyed, Striker Eureka is disabled with an EMP blast, and Herc is injured. Mako is reinstated and the nuclear-powered Gipsy, immune to EMPs, manages to eliminate both Kaiju. Newton and Hannibal attempt to harvest one of the Kaiju's brain but find that she was pregnant; the infant Kaiju bursts out, devouring Hannibal before strangling itself with its umbilical cord. Newton and Hermann drift with the infant's brain, discovering that the Breach only opens if it detects Kaiju DNA.
Pentecost reveals to Raleigh that he has radiation poisoning from excessive Jaeger piloting. Although doing so again would prove fatal, Pentecost resolves to co-pilot Striker in the injured Herc's stead. As Gipsy and Striker approach, three new Kaiju appear to stop them, including the most powerful Kaiju yet. Gipsy kills one Kaiju, but is damaged. Pentecost and Chuck sacrifice themselves by detonating their nuclear warhead, killing one and allowing Gipsy to defeat the other and ride its corpse into the Breach. Raleigh ejects Mako from Gipsy, triggers a meltdown in the Jaeger's nuclear reactor, and ejects before its detonation seals the Breach. Their escape pods surface as rescue helicopters arrive, and humanity celebrates the defeat of the Kaiju.
Cast
Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket: A former Jaeger pilot who is called back into action after his brother is killed in battle. Becket is haunted by his past experiences fighting the Kaiju, but he ultimately decides to join forces with Marshall Stacker Pentecost, to pilot a new Jaeger and take down the monstrous creatures once and for all. On casting Hunnam, del Toro stated, "I saw him and I thought he had an earnest, really honest nature. And he was the kind of guy that I can relate to, as a male audience member I go, 'I like that guy. I would like to have a few beers with that guy' ... he has an earthy quality." Describing the character, Hunnam stated, "When you meet me, in the beginning of the story, I've suffered a giant loss. Not only has it killed my sense of self-worth, but also my will to fight and keep on going. And then, Rinko and Idris, and a couple other people, bring me out of retirement to try to help with this grand push. I think that journey is a very relatable one. Everybody, at some point in their life, has fallen down and not felt like getting back up, but you have to, no matter how difficult it is." Hunnam was also considered for the role of Prince Nuada in del Toro's previous film, Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Paul Michael Wyers plays Raleigh as a child. Idris Elba as Marshal Stacker Pentecost: A highly respected military leader who has dedicated his life to defending humanity from the Kaiju. He is a firm believer in the power of the Jaeger program and will stop at nothing to see it succeed. Despite his tough exterior, Pentecost is deeply compassionate and fiercely loyal to his team. On selecting Elba, del Toro stated, "This is a movie where I have had to deal with more dialogue than ever, and the way I cast the movie was—who do I want to hear say these things? Who do I want Charlie Hunnam to go against? Who can really tell Charlie Hunnam 'sit down and listen'?" In another interview, the director said: "I wanted to have Idris not be the blonde, square-jawed, Anglo, super hip marine that knows [everything]. I wanted somebody that could bring a lot of authority, but that you could feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. When I watched Luther, that's the essence of the character ... Luther is carrying literally the evils of the world on his shoulders. He's doing penance for all humanity ... Idris is one of those actors that is capable of embodying humanity, in almost like a Rodin sculpture-type, larger than life, almost like a Russian realism statue, you know, big hands, all the turmoil of humanity in his eyes. I wanted somebody that you could have doubts internally, and very few guys can do that." To prepare for the role, Elba watched footage of politicians David Cameron and Barack Obama, as well as Russell Crowe in Gladiator and Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Del Toro initially envisioned the character as a Pete "Maverick" Mitchell-type character and offered the role to Tom Cruise, who briefly accepted the part and engaged in negotiations but ultimately backed out during the process over pay and scheduling.Guillermo Del Toro on Tom Cruise HappySadPodcast clip Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori: A young woman who has dreamed of piloting a Jaeger her entire life. She is initially rejected from the program due to her lack of experience, but she ultimately proves herself to be a skilled and capable pilot. Mori has a deep personal connection to the Kaiju, and her motivation for joining the fight is deeply personal. Del Toro explained, "I was very careful how I built the movie. One of the other things I decided was that I wanted a female lead who has the equal force as the male leads. She's not going to be a sex kitten, she's not going to come out in cutoff shorts and a tank top, and it's going to be a real earnestly drawn character." Noting that the other actors were exhausted and "destroyed physically" by filming in the intensive Jaeger cockpit harnesses, del Toro said: "The only one that didn't break was Rinko Kikuchi, the girl. She never complained... I asked Rinko her secret and she said 'I think of gummi bears and flowers.' I try to do that in my life now." Mana Ashida plays Mako as a child. Charlie Day as Dr. Newton "Newt" Geiszler: An eccentric and brilliant scientist who is obsessed with studying the Kaiju. He is initially brought on to the team to help understand the creatures and find a way to defeat them, but he quickly becomes embroiled in the larger conflict. Despite his quirks, Geiszler is a valuable member of the team and plays a crucial role in the final battle against the Kaiju. Day stated, "Certainly myself and Burn Gorman provide a little bit of much needed levity, it's a break from the monsters and the guys fighting. But then the character gets thrust into the story in a way that his life is seriously at risk and it becomes a little more action oriented and a little more horror movie-esque. So, he kinda bounces back between being humorous and also being real ... the rest of these guys, they look really good in their suits and they've got abs, they can kick and fight and punch. Newt is sort of the 'everyman' and he's flawed and he's arrogant." Del Toro gave Geiszler the mentality of a celebrity chef, with tattoos and a "big personality". According to the director, Day was cast based on his performance in an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "He comes out with a stick, and he has a monologue about what it is to hunt the rats in the basement. It was very funny, but he was coming from character. He was not doing big stuff, he was, like, really mourning and lamenting his job, you know, how inhuman it is. And I thought, 'This guy is great at shading and comedy.' There are moments in the movie where he delivers them both." Trek Buccino portrays Newt as a child.