I have a long, documented history with monster movies.  Also, similar to my mind classifying all martial arts movies into a Kung Fu category, I also lump all scary and awesome creatures into the Monster category.  If that irritates you, just stop reading now and don’t feel the urge to send me any hate mail.

I just don’t care.

I am not the person that dissects a movie to pieces and tend to sit back, let it unfold and judge it as a whole.  I also don’t let public opinion sway my own, for example, I didn’t like Bridesmaids and I HATED Vanilla Sky.  But I digress…

This week, I have to explain why my favorite monsters now are basically everything in Pacific Rim.  Yes, I am including Jaegers in that.

I was pretty sad to see a lot of discussion on the movie from people had not even gone to see it or folks immediately dismissing it.  Is it loud?  YES.  Is it considered a “blockbuster”? YES.  Does that mean it’s not worth the hype?  NO.

With Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro does a beautiful job (as always) with making his “creatures” feel real.  They move with purpose and logically as an animal would.  You can observe different animal movements in each one as they become larger, more fantastic and impressive.  My personal favorite was the one that tore through town moving like a silver back gorilla…TERRIFYING.  In this movie, what those of us that grew up watching Godzilla vs. Mothra saw these Kaiju was a return to the childhood that movies can bring back.  What I say in Jaegers reminded me so much of the great Japanese serialized defenders of the people.  The things that feel fantastic and surreal but also have you rooting for the “good guy.”  For me, aside from my Dad, I will say again, this is all Ted Turner’s fault.  The same person that brought me Shock Theater also brought me Ultraman and Ambassador Magma.  Never heard of these?  Well you should have because they are precursors to the Transformers and Jaegers.  For me, it was so much more awesome as a kid growing up in a tiny Southern town dreaming of running away!

Del Toro knows about those little kids…it would be impossible for him not to!  Once you watch Pacific Rim, every single image tells me he spent an incredible amount of time to get it right.  It is magical and delicious and I can’t get enough of it!  (Yes, I already pre-ordered my Blu-Ray).

I highly recommend you drop the hypercritical lens and overly academic view of movies and sit back and enjoy a throw back to a simpler time.  Our world would be a better place if people could do that a little more.  🙂