New film: "Pacific Rim" Odiously destructive

下面是經濟學人雜誌給出的評論

CINEMA'S year of mass destruction continues. The recent Superman reboot, 「Man Of Steel」, was rightly criticised for laying waste to towns and cities in the name of family entertainment. Several more of 2013’s blockbusters, including such supposedly child-friendly fare as 「GI Joe: Retaliation」, have toppled skyscrapers as casually as if they were skittles. Now comes 「Pacific Rim」, an apocalyptic giant-robots v giant-aliens slugfest which treats civilisation to a dozen earthquakes』 worth of damage.

What’s particularly disappointing is that the film is co-written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, the Mexican director behind such acclaimed haunting, atmospheric fantasiesas 「The Devil’s Backbone」 and 「Pan’s Labyrinth」. Like Tim Burton, Mr Del Toro has always been better at envisioning weird creatures than at telling resonant stories, but in 「Pacific Rim」 he cares less than ever about anything that isn』t a computer-generated monster.

The film is set in the near future. A gateway between universes has opened at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and gargantuan, Godzilla-like fiends called Kaiju keep popping through and wading towards major metropolises. The human race’s response to these attacks is to aim a nuclear arsenal at the gateway, ready to fire whenever another Kaiju makes an appearance. Actually, no, that would be too rational. According to the logic-free script, co-written by Mr Del Toro and Travis Beacham, humans have instead decided to build mountain-sized combat robots called Jaegers, which are operated by two-man teams of pilots in Iron Man armour. Any resemblance to 「Transformers」 and 「Independence Day」, or indeed to 「Iron Man」 and 「Godzilla」, is purely co-incidental.

The strangest aspect of the film is that the story—the arrival of the aliens, the construction of the war machines—is all consigned to a montage before the opening titles. By the time the film gets underway, the Jaeger v Kaiju bouts have been going on for decades, which means that there’s precious little plot left for the remaining two hours. Oddly, there are almost no heroics, no rescues, no overcoming of obstacles or solving of problems. Instead, various gruff military types played by Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam and other not-quite-stars stand around in their gloomy headquarters, where they debate the bewilderingly petty issue of who Mr Hunnam’s new co-pilot should be. None of these characters has any more personality than their mechanical buddies, and the world’s civilian population is all but ignored—until, that is, it is time for it to be decimated by grappling Kaiju and Jaegers.

Of course, these overgrown fight scenes are the film’s raison d』etre. If you are keen to see two colossi punching each other in slow motion, while wreathed in torrential rain and ocean spray, then 「Pacific Rim」 is well worth the price of a ticket. The effects are undoubtedly spectacular, even awe-inspiring. As a long, moody commercial for a range of non-existent toys, the film is the sort of harmless, hollow fantasy which any 11-year-old boy might come up with if he had $150m to play with. It is certainly not actively offensive in the manner of the sleazy and sexist 「Transformers」 franchise. Yet there is something odious about a film which involves the smashing of hundreds of buildings, but which doesn』t have the faintest concern for the innocent people who would be killed in the process. At a time when comparable scenes of devastation can be seen on the news, in stories about flooding in China or a train crash in Canada, we might well pine for the days when effects-packed summer movies provided some escapism.

Excerpt from:(http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/07/new-film-pacific-rim)