First Reactions To Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim

Over the weekend, the first screening for Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim was held and some of the people who were lucky enough to be in attendance have been sharing their reactions, which you can check out below. It seems that the general consensus is that del Toro has a hit on his hands, which isn’t too surprising.

Buzz surrounding the film has been positive for some time now and reactions to all the promotional material has pointed towards this one being both an audience and critics pleaser. Guillermo del Toro rarely disappoints and for me, at least, Pacific Rim looks to be an epic ride that will be full of enough “wow” and “holy cow” moments to impress even the most jaded of moviegoers. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen but judging by these first impressions, I think we have a hit on our hands.

Check out the reactions below and let us know what you think. As an added bonus, we also have a handful of new photos from the film, which you can check out below.

Pacific Rim hits theatres on July 11th, 2013.

Rian Johnson @rianjohnson (Twitter)
Go into Pacific Rim prepared to be transmogrified into a 12 year old. And then to pee your pants with joy. I love it so much.

Bryan Chojnowski @BryanInSpace (Twitter)
Just saw an early cut of Pacific Rim and it is pretttttty cool.

Eric Church @HoursOfWealth (Twitter)
Saw a pre-screening of Pacific Rim… it is amazing.

Alex Irvine @alexirvine (Twitter)
So, yeah. You’re going to want to see Pacific Rim.

IMDb user OriginsOfRuin:
I just got back from the screening (though I’m not this guy’s friend, haha), and I freaking loved it. That’s all I can really say, but the FX are flat out incredible (the ones that were done) and the story is solid. I didn’t know Charlie Day was in it, and being a big fan of It’s Always Sunny, that was a pleasant surprise (he fits his role perfectly).

Overall, it’s probably the best summer monster movie I’ve seen, and out of summer movies in general, falls behind the new Batman series, but that’s about it. I wrote on their response form that they should be proud of the movie and that I’m glad it’s not another Transformers clone (re: Battleship). They killed it!

Let’s be honest, it’s not meant to be a complex, character-driven movie like the Batman franchise. There are huge monsters, humans fight them with big machines, and that’s your basic story. Beyond that, it’s easy to root for the characters and the action set pieces and monsters are incredible and awesome. It’s the summer action movie Transformers should’ve been, but failed epically at.

I don’t think you can expect that out of him because Avatar took place on another planet. Del Toro can only world build in the sense of envisioning a future on planet earth with crazy, big ass robots defending cities around the globe from giant, alien monsters. He can’t deviate too much from how we know and understand the world already.

1. The movie in its current form was around 2:00-2:15-ish. We weren’t allowed to have phones, so I’m not sure of the exact time..

2. I thought the performances were very good, considering the subject matter and the script. Idris Elba was great as the older commanding officer, and Charlie and Rinko both did well in their roles. Charlie Day and Ron Perlman were both awesome. It’s not going to win any SAG awards by any means, but the acting and direction were solid, and above average for a big monster movie.

3. There was a good mixture between the two and they blended it really well. The set pieces with the jaegers were amazing and absolutely monstrous. It felt like a good combination between visual FX, models, and practical effects.

There were a good amount of kaijus (monsters), but they vary in size. Can’t really give the details on them.

If IMDb were to allow me to rated the movie, I’d give it a 10/10. I generally rate movies pretty highly, but that goes with understanding the identity of the movie for me. This particular film wasn’t meant to be anything more than giant robots fighting giant monsters. In that sense, it succeeded big time, and it had a lotta heart to go with it. I was thoroughly impressed and smiling throughout the film.