6) del Toro’s Designs Are Second-To-None
Pacific Rim is not a perfect movie. The characters can be two-dimensional, a couple of the action scenes are unnecessarily dark, and the dialogue – though peppered with one-liner brilliance like, “today we are canceling the apocalypse” – could do with some added dynamism. These are all things a sequel could improve upon, of course; one aspect of Pacific Rim that needs no improvements, however, is del Toro’s design work.
Always aesthetically ambitious, del Toro reaches for the sky in Pacific Rim, and the result is the filmmaker showing what he can do at the peak of his powers.
For the skyscraper-tall Jaegers, the director opted for a sleek, Gundam Wing-style mecha design. For the alien Kaiju, del Toro borrowed from disparate sources like Lovecraft and Goya to create unique-looking, neon-colored beasts with angular, weapon-like heads.
The world design itself is no less impressive: a kind of brightly-colored, more hopeful Blade Runner with a splash of present-day familiarity. Pacific Rim looks immaculate, with the franchise clearly bringing out the best in del Toro. Who wouldn’t want to see more of the same in a sequel?
