Pacific Rim

The Gist: Immense alien creatures start attacking the planet via a portal at the bottom of the Pacific ocean. The world's nations have to come together to fight back via huge (and hugely expensive) robots, controlled by two pilots who are linked neurally. Unfortunately, the alien attacks intensify in frequency and strength, so a desperate plan to close off the portal once and for all has to be attempted.

Pacific Rim is a movie full of bombast and its target audience are obviously video game obsessed teenage boys, but it's moderately entertaining nonetheless.

The visual effects are very well done and the story itself, while heavily borrowing from other monster movies, is, if nothing else, ambitious.

Impressive is the amount of eye candy assembled in the cast. Starting of course with the impossibly gorgeous Charlie Hunnam, we have Diego Klattenhoff, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Max Martini, and Robert Kazinsky, among several others.

The Bottom Line: Pacific Rim is the typical bash-em-up flick that entertains for a couple hours but doesn't leave much of an impression.

Grade: 6