Atlantic Rim

From Oscar award to the only explanation being Alzheimer's or absolute rock-bottom desperation for a paycheck.

Don't know what a "mockbuster" is? Watch Pacific rim then watch this. Your education is complete. Oedipus would gouge his eyes out again. You could hit yourself in the face with a hammer and your time would be better spent than if you whatch this. Even worse than Robot Jox...

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?

Michael Scott's movie "Threat Level Midnight" was probably better than this pile of garbage.

........BA BOOM!!!!! Thing's gone."

Entire cast succeeded in never connecting with a high five, low five, fist bump, hand shake or any other celebratory hand or body gesture. Solid one star acting effort by all, but additional star for consistently bad from start to finish.

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.