What is the story with apocalypses this summer?
In the Superman movie Zod wants to destroy Earth, in World War Z, the
zombies threaten to wipe out humanity, in Oblivion the Earth is already mostly
laid waste to, and in This is the End the apocalypse arrives complete with
demons and devils and hell. And that's not even to mention World's End, the new
Simon Pegg movie, the title of which is pretty self-explanatory.
And now comes Pacific Rim . The end of
all humanity is threatened this time from under the sea. More specifically this
threat comes from a breach in the Earth's crust somewhere the Pacific Ocean,
from where monsters called Kaiju emerge to wreak havoc on the coastal areas of
Asia, Australia and the US
As the attacks increase the world must come together to combat the
monsters. Gigantic robots called Jaegers are built that have the size and
fire-power to defeat the Kaiju. The robots need to be piloted by two people,
and because of a neural link between the pilots, they are normally relatives,
brothers, fathers and sons, triplets.
The showdown happens as the Kaiju attacks increase in frequency, and the
agency (led by Idris Elba, from The Wire, whose character's name in Pacific Rim is the fabulous Stacker Pentecost) plan to
try and nuke the breach in the ocean's crust in order to close it.
Cue massive explosions, cartoon type violence, combat between
mountain-sized creatures and gargantuan robots, destruction on an
incomprehensible scale, and then an attempted mind-meld with a Kaiju.
It is a silly, entertaining, vivid, spectacular piece of nonsense. There
are two things that I think are especially worth noting about the film, beyond
the CGI and the implausible plot.
Firstly, at least it is an original idea from an original script, and
not a remake, or a sequel, or a reimagining, or a tired new treatment of an old
theme, like ninety percent of the big-budget movies of this year.
Secondly it is not as massively Amero-centric as most of the Hollywood films produced at the moment. Involved in the
final battle are robots from Russia ,
Australia and China
This, I assume, is down to Guillermo del Toro, who directs this film, a
Mexican who has worked in Spain Hong Kong .
For these two reasons alone it is worth seeing. It just remains to
wonder about this obsession about the end of the world at the moment. Is it
born of some kind of preoccupation with coming environmental calamity, or else
the feelings of insecurity in the US
Whatever the reason, it has now become a trend. The world is about to
end, who will save us? Is everything really that tenuous? Is humanity truly in
that much danger? If you watch Hollywood
blockbusters at the moment, you could be forgiven for believing that the end is
very much nigh.
I was very much expecting to hate this film but, surprisingly, like you, I didn't. It was, by no means, perfect but I was able to appreciate the subject matter and the film for they were, pure entertainment. I think you're right to point out that this is one of the very few original concepts to be made into a film (especially a summer blockbuster) in years. I must say, however, that it is not entirely without precedent (Godzilla, Robotech, Robot Jox) but then, there's nothing new under the sun.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering about your idea that apocalypse themed movies have been especially popular this year and I'm not sure it's such a recent trend. In fact it has been going for quite a while. Remeber when "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" came out in the same year? That was 1998!
I think we always have something of which we're afraid, or at least, something that we're told we should fear; and we have a perverse desire to see the realisation of our fears. Disaster movies, apocalyptic movies and horrors have been popular for a really long time no matter how dreadful their premise or execution (The Core, 2012, ugh.)
On the other hand, to be fair to you, we do have two movies out within weeks of each other called "This is the End" and "World's End." What I think is most interesting about this is that these are both comedies. It kind of suggests a move towards post-post-apocalyptic movies in the near future, I think. Or maybe it's just that it's best to laugh in Armageddon's face
Yeah, I can see that the threat of the end of the world has always been a theme for film-makers, but this year it seems to have become the default setting for movies - put humanity in danger of being wiped out. My impression is that, even if some of them are laughing at the concept, it is still the apocalypse that is forming the central setting for these stories. Maybe if we see it on screen, the real threat of mass destruction won't seem so frightening!
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