Let's hand it to Guillermo Del Toro (2008's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army") for one thing: he has managed to co-write, alongside Travis Beacham (2010's "Clash of the Titans"), and direct one of the very few potential blockbusters during the summer of 2013 that isn't based on any kind of pre-existing material or proven name brand. It's not a comic book adaptation. It's not a sequel. There's no theme park ride, and, thank goodness, no old TV series to reimagine. The plot itself might not be the most original idea to ever pass through Hollywood, but at least the onscreen world and apocalyptic mythos it creates come freshly from the minds of those who conceived the picture. Not just anyone could have convinced Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures to fork over $180-million for such an expensive gamble, so credit Del Toro for earning the pull and reverence for major studios and production companies to be willing to take the risk. If "Pacific Rim" is admirable for this very fact, the positive tidings mustered up by the film itself are sadly short-lived. Were it not for the filmmaker's audacious rolodex of imaginative details and crafty Easter eggs he fills virtually every blink-and-you'll-miss-them frame with, this epic sci-fi showdown between Kaiju and Jaegers (read: giant beasts and robots) would be an entirely hollow cinematic experience that, shockingly, is no more comprehensible than the average Michael Bay crunch-'em-up.
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