Under normal circumstances, the way the Film at 11 podcast is supposed to work is that I, as a parent, will choose a movie I want one of my children to see, and then force him to watch it and talk about it afterward. Whether the kid initially has any interest in that movie is kind of beside the point of my making him watch something he wouldn’t think of on his own. This week, however, I was in a generous mood and decided to shake things up a little bit. I let my son Thomas pick the movie we’d watch. That may have been a mistake, because it means I had to sit through Pacific Rim.
I’d actually seen Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 robots-versus-monsters slugfest before, sometime after it was first released on Blu-ray. I wouldn’t say I hated the movie, but I was decidedly underwhelmed by it and easily could have gone the rest of my life without watching it again. Having now done so, that opinion frankly hasn’t changed in the slightest. In my book, this is still one of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s least interesting movies (and, yeah, I’ve suffered through that horrible stop-motion Pinocchio thing he did for Netflix).
My son, on the other hand, is 11. The appeal of big robots fighting big monsters is pretty much irresistible to a boy that age. So, I guess it’s my week to be a good sport and try not to let too much of my disdain for the movie come through in the podcast. I’ll be honest, I may not have been very successful at that part.
| Title: | Pacific Rim |
| Year of Release: | 2013 |
| Director: | Guillermo del Toro |
| Watched On: | Blu-ray 3D |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Netflix Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
The Blu-ray
Following its summer 2013 theatrical run, Pacific Rim was released onto Blu-ray in both 2D and 3D editions in November of that year (just over a month before Thomas was born, actually!). At that time, I imported a SteelBook copy from the UK that contained both 2D and 3D versions, sight unseen, simply because I’m a sucker for a nice SteelBook and I like many of Guillermo del Toro’s other movies. I thought this would be a safe bet as something I’d enjoy. We all make mistakes sometimes.
More recently, Pacific Rim was also released onto 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2016. However, this isn’t a movie I’m inclined to want to own more copies of. I also feel that this film was photographed with deliberate thought and effort put into its 3D presentation, and that 3D remains its most optimal display format (the 4K version having been upscaled from a 2K Digital Intermediate anyway).
I don’t use 3D very often these days, but my home theater projector is still fully compatible with the format. I charged up my 3D glasses and got it working without too much fuss. The 3D aspect of this movie is very smartly applied, for a naturalistic sense of spacial depth and image layering that’s consistently impressive and never feels too gimmicky.
Pacific Rim played theatrically at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Both 2D and 3D Blu-rays were slightly opened up to full-screen 16:9, to negligible difference. As a mostly-digital production with a significant amount of CGI in just about every scene, the picture is very sharp and glossy. I’ll note that my calibrated 3D preset bumps the projector into its highest lamp mode for the most brightness, to counteract the dimming effect of the 3D glasses. At those settings, the image looks sufficiently bright even through the glasses. The Blu-ray may not have HDR, but the contrast is rich and colors are vibrant. This is good enough to serve for my purposes, and I still feel that I’d rather have this movie in 3D than 4K.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack hits hard with a lot of slam-bang bass. The surround channels are also extremely active, enough that I don’t feel I’m missing much without the Dolby Atmos remix on the later 4K edition. (Looking up some reviews from the time, it appears that the domestic Blu-ray release for this movie actually offered separate 5.1 and 7.1 soundtrack options for some reason. While my copy from the UK only has 5.1, it upmixes just fine.)
The paper backer that came on the SteelBook case promises “hours of bonus content” that will “take you inside the mind of acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro.” I have no plans to waste any of my life watching that kind of nonsense for this movie. Skimming through the menus, the 3D disc has nothing on it but the movie itself. Meanwhile, the main 2D disc includes an audio commentary by the director and a dozen very short “Focus Points” featurettes that amount to about an hour of material. A separate disc for Special Features then adds a “Director’s Notebook” (consisting of multiple video pods and art galleries you need to click through individually), plus some behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, and bloopers. I suppose if you actually care about Pacific Rim, some of this stuff might be interesting. Unfortunately, that rules me out.
Related
- Guillermo del Toro
- Charlie Hunnam
- Charlie Day
- Ron Perlman
- Giant Monsters
The Video File Blog 
How could you not love this one?? This has been a favorite of mine since its release. The UHD has a killer Atmos track worth double dipping for although I do love the 3D version for this one. Did your son watch in 3D? I would imagine kids of his era wouldn’t be that impressed by it. I’ve always loved the monster and robot designs here and was able to easily distinguish them. My biggest gripe with the movie was the final underwater battle was a bit underwhelming after the big Hong Kong battle.
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