Atlantic Rim

Another Asylum cash-in on a summer blockbuster. Like they did with "Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies" just in time before the release of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" or "I am Omega" as "I am Legend" came out, so again they do it with "Atlantic Rim" in the time of "Pacific Rim".

It is just shameful, isn't it? But still, you know what you get with the productions and movies spewed out by The Asylum. Lower budget version of potential blockbusters, with failing dialogue and even worse CGI effects.

However, I will say that in the more recent time, The Asylum has started to post more money into the CGI effects, and it is paying off. The effects in "Atlantic Rim" were actually quite alright. Though the movie was just suffering from being a cheap knock off of "Pacific Rim".

The storyline in this movie requires no brain activity, just switch into auto-pilot and watch the movie as the three good guys in their mecha armor suits beat up some colossus aquatic monster that came from God knows where.

As for the dialogue in the movie, well it was bad, really bad. I have never heard soldiers talk or communicate in the way that they did in this movie. And some of the things they say was just downright embarrassing to witness.

And the acting in the movie was equally bad. Steven Marlow (playing Sheldon Geise) looked like he had a bad case of diarrhea, while Graham Greene (playing Admiral Hadley) was like a drone totally devoid of emotions at all. And David Chokachi (playing Red) looked like he was trying to do a reenactment of "American Ninja: The Musical" - if there was such a thing.

This is not one of the better movies to make it out of The Asylum's drawing board, not even by a long shot. Everything here was rushed and seemed to be half-hearted. If you are going to copy something and cash in on something, at least do it properly.

For a Sci-Fi movie, then "Atlantic Rim" was a really plain and below mediocre experience. Although I have seen a lot, and I do mean a lot, of questionable and low-budget movies, then "Atlantic Rim" is not the worst amongst those movie, but it is up there on the high ends of the scale.

I got duped and started watching this believing it was the blockbuster "Pacific Rim". It was an impressive experience, my first exposure to a "mockbuster". To my defence, I quickly realized that I was not watching the real thing, so what the heck was I watching? I just couldn't believe that there was a market for this, so I came up with a few theories: * internet spoof: a bunch of movie buffs enjoy recreating scene-by-scene a blockbuster with intentionally minimalist SFX for release on YouTube * film school project: a bunch of students set out to recreate a multi-million blockbuster as quickly and inexpensively as possible, in order to learn the ropes What I finally settled on, was that I was watching an animated storyboard, i. e. a filmed first draft of the original movie script. I had to admire the actors for acting their hearts out, almost like in a real movie, only much more hammy. I sat transfixed through half of the movie. Never in the world, though, would I have suspected that this was an actual inferior copy of the original, made to part suckers from their money. Who would go back to a rental place that had fooled them once?

How can I explain this film? It goes so far beyond words. I simply cannot use words to describe it. Words are simply not suitable, they are not powerful enough to explain the range of emotions one feels when watching this... artwork.

While watching this film, I experienced uncontrollable laughter. It was wonderful at first, but then it tapered off and left me with a general nausea induced by a profound feeling of pity. I felt so sorry for the actors. The shame of being in this movie must surely weigh heavily upon them.

Enough hyperbole. Let's get to the heart of it.

The movie's production value was actually reasonable. But almost every minute of it was an assault on my brain. The acting was atrocious, the CGI was not horrible, but was far from convincing. Think Power Rangers. The soundtrack was utterly miserable, a straight run of "epic-ish-action-ish-wow-you" muzak that never seemed to fit the scenes, but instead served as the only consistent tie between them.

The flow of the plot, the aspect of a movie that ties each scene together into a cohesive storyline, was just deplorable. The director leaps from scene to scene, the actors doing things that make no sense at all, only to end up at the bar drinking as much as possible (apparently this is what the writers feel good soldiers should do). I suppose it's reasonably difficult to outline a respectable plot when the story itself is so full of haphazard clichés. The soldiers don't act like soldiers, the monsters don't act like monsters, the civilians act like cannon fodder (of course. And they do such a good job of it). I can't say the movie was completely predictable because NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE.

I felt like a 5 year old boy was leaping on his bed swinging around his Jedi light-saber telling me, "And then the robots had weapons! And then the monster threw a submarine! And then they drank too much!" And all when while I just want him to calm down and go to bed so that I can think straight and make sense of the world again.

I feel my score is accurate, but despite that, this is a must watch. It will teach you so much about good movie making, using the time honored "See what they did? DON'T EVER DO THAT" method of teaching.

I have not been left so fulfilled and in such a philosophical stupor by a film for a very long time.

Once you get past the horrendously mid-level acting, the script is so well written I actually haemorrhaged blood into my bladder. With no less than 5 B-movie stereotypes per 10lines of dialogue.

The camera work leaves nothing to be desired at any stage.

With a laugh a minute this film leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling to your very core.

The ever present joy of these wonderful pieces cack is that they can't afford to employ many people so, you have minimal credits to sit through whilst waiting for the non-existent after credit scene that doesn't set up the non-existent sequel.

10/10 would not recommend.

Have yet to see Pacific Rim, but the probability of it being worse than this is highly unlikely. There are worse movies from The Asylum than Atlantic Rim, but is that saying much? The Asylum have been capable of some tolerable movies and some movies that have a lot of flaws but have a dumb sort of fun(the recent Sharknado fitted in this category), then there are some that are lame but with its moments and some that are bottom-of-the-barrel. Atlantic Rim is bottom-of-the-barrel quality, it not only is so badly done in every way but there isn't any novelty value to make it fun, whereas some other terrible Asylum movies did have specks of that. There are worse special effects from The Asylum and they are the least bad asset of Atlantic Rim, the robots are very Power Rangers-like but they do look decent though the sea creature is slapdash and doesn't seem that much of a threat. In other technical areas Atlantic Rim fares worse, the editing and camera work are rushed and frenzied, making some scenes containing action not very cohesive and the sound effects and mixing are muddied. The music is generic and doesn't come across as memorable at all, sometimes at a sluggish tempo which made it a rather dull score too.

The dialogue is just painful, the interplay between the soldiers is awkward and the actors look even more uncomfortable delivering it while the scripting itself is shallow and rambling and if you're looking for sense you won't find it. The story as to be expected shows The Asylum's complete lack of originality, it's a decent idea but executed horribly. The pacing is hugely problematic in the movie, there is a lot of irrelevant filler and exposition that bogs everything down significantly while the action is rushed and done in such a half-hearted. Anybody who expects thrills, fun and a little suspense are better off finding something else, none of those things are in Atlantic Rim. None of the characters are likable, they have cardboard personalities- once you get over the fact that once again The Asylum are using literally every cliché in the book- and are severely undeveloped, to make things worse the soldiers are annoying and the villain is like one from a bad Saturday morning cartoon. The acting gives insult to the word amateurish, with a mix of looking constipated, bad overacting, having the inability of acting scared or fearful of their situation and just acting emotionless. Atlantic Rim joins the long list of low-budget movies where a capable actor gives a lousy performance, in this case Graeme Greene, and there are the obligatory beautiful women whose acting talents don't match their looks. All in all, just terrible with no entertainment value to be had. And that is even when you know what to expect. 1/10 Bethany Cox