Quote:Foxboy wrote:There's a decent plot.
Plot? What Plot?
Is it Inception levels of plot within mindscrew within "we MUST HAVE A TWEEST!"? No. It's a two hour action flick. It knows what it wants to be. There is precisely enough plot to support the acting, the basic concept, and anything extraneous was cut away.
One of the biggest examples I can think of is when you see the retired ex-pilot get asked to suit up again, because things are going to hell and they need him. He's clearly not into the idea, so the Big Black Leader Guy asks him a simple question. "Haven't you heard? The end of the world is at hand. And when that comes and you die, would you rather be in a Jaeger, or dangling up on that wall?"
The next scene has the guy debarking from a helicopter at the Jaeger deployment base. There is no horrible fifteen minutes of soul searching over this. No dwelling on the trauma of seeing his brother die five years ago. When it comes down to it, do you want to wallow, or do you want to do something about it and fight? The movie chooses "fight", and that is really all you need to know.
In another scene, one character mentions that "Huh, bread? I haven't seen that in years." That's all that's mentioned. No ten minutes of explanation of how kaiju have impacted the global economy and Jaegers are bankrupting the world as the cost of survival. That's excess to requirements. This movie doesn't spend minutes on things that a few cues will indicate for people without needing to smack you over the head with them.
Calling it shallow or cliche' is a misnomer. It is classic. These are story arcs we've all seen before. These are characters we've all seen before. There is nothing terribly new and different in this movie. But there was nothing new and terribly different in Star Wars, and yet you don't see people griping about that. It is a collection of classic archetypes, plot points, characters, and twists that were polished to a mirror shine by Del Toro and his crew because they are fans of this genre and they get it.
Also, if someone says that there's no underlying theme in this movie? They're wrong. The theme is that family and that you are not alone. It's hammered in with every character interaction to the point that, if Del Toro hadn't basically said that he was tired of PR being compared to Eva, you'd think this was a massive middle finger to everything Evangelion seems to fixate on.
This was a good movie. A solid movie. One I will watch over and over because it makes me feel good about myself and other people. It did that better than Man of Steel, which stars goddamn Superman. And that's really all I can really say further without spoilers.
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"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."