A Look Back at Pacific Rim

Time for a thought exercise.

I want you to imagine a child. A kind of small, impressionable young boy. He's playing in the bathtub with toy boats and rubber ducks and basically having a real fun time. And then he's like, oh man, what if the boat was a boat and the duck was a Godzilla. And he smashes the duck into the boat, making fake Godzilla roars with his mouth and just reliving the same moments he just saw on TV in black and white, but, like, it's him doing it. And he's pretty happy about it.

Now I want you to imagine that the kid has grown up and their name is Guillermo Del Toro and they're given millions of dollars to do the duck and boat thing but instead of a rubber duck and a toy boat in a bathtub, it's a real boat and a giant CGI duck in the Industrial Light and Magic office. And instead of making fake Godzilla roars with his mouth, it's Tom Morello making weird cool noises on his 'lectric geetar on the soundtrack. You've pretty much just imagined how Pacific Rim was made. Probably.

Review: "Pacific Rim"

If the idea of a director at the top of his game making a movie solely on the basis that it excites his inner child somehow doesn't appeal to you, I need you to stop reading. Right now. This film isn't for you. Go and watch The King's Speech or something droll. Alright? Alright.

So. Guillermo del Toro is indisputably an expert filmmaker, having mastered a fair degree of genres and amassing well-deserved popularity, and that might just be me, but I'm pretty certain it's an established fact. He explored similar "monster movie" ideas in films like Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy series - so, in a way, Pacific Rim is a culmination of his previous interests into one colossal, big-budget summer release - a film where giant robots punch giant lizards in the face, with all of the polish such a concept has rarely deserved (or afforded).

Review: "Godzilla: The Half-Century War"

Godzilla is larger-than-life. The stories told with the iconic Japanese kaiju range from one of the most epic tragedies ever made in 1954's Gojira, to fanciful, bombastic space operas like only the Japanese can make with Godzilla: Final Wars. Along the way he has met so many fresh faces, crushed so many towns, and - in a way - saved so many lives, that he has carved for himself a unique position in literary history: he is a hero, a monster, a victim, and a force of nature, all rolled into one. He also has radioactive breath, and he punches giant butterflies. I can dig it.

Godzilla: The Half-Century War takes a refreshingly human look at this rich destructive history. It follows the story of Ota Murakami, a Japanese Lieutenant who is stationed during Godzilla's first iconic rampage through Tokyo. Through sheer indignation and forward-thinking, he is able to lure Godzilla away from a major population zone long enough for it to evacuate. With this single act, he begins a lifelong obsession with the King of Monsters - a Half-Century War, if you will.