Being a bunch of science fiction geeks, my family went to see the big-budget giant monster movie Pacific Rim this past weekend. Much fun was had.
But, as so often happens, I got to thinking afterward. Pacific Rim is a very stupid movie. The monsters are nonsensical, the giant robots are nonsensical, and the entire plot of the film is completely nonsensical.
Did I mention that we all enjoyed it a great deal?
So I'm faced with a question: why are some stupid movies just irritating, while others are enormously entertaining? I wrote three blog posts about how annoyed Battleship made me. But, viewed objectively, Battleship wasn't any more stupid than Pacific Rim. It certainly did less violence to the laws of nature, and the motives and methods of the bad guys were, if anything, slightly less nonsensical than those of the villains in Pacific Rim.
And yet I liked Pacific Rim a lot more. Why?
It certainly wasn't the acting. The meatball Everyman hero played by Charlie Hunnam is about the same as the meatball Everyman hero played by Taylor Kitsch. The visual effects in Pacific Rim (including monsters designed by one of my favorite artists, Wayne D. Barlowe) were better -- but Battleship compensates with real-life warship cheesecake shots courtesy of the United States Navy, so that's not it.
Ultimately I think it comes down to two factors.
Richness: Pacific Rim doesn't just show us the heroes fighting the monsters, and their personal soap opera plots getting in the way. It also gives us bizarre minor characters like Ron Perlman's black-market monster-parts dealer, bizarre background locations like a slum in Hong Kong built into the skeleton of a fallen monster, and some entertaining glimpses of a world in which the main political issue is giant monster attacks. Battleship doesn't do much of that, and when it does, it tends to double back on the boring meatball protagonist instead of turning loose some character actors to chew on the scenery.
Enthusiasm: I think this is the key. Battleship was made, ultimately, because executives at Hasbro decided to build their board game into a "media property." Pacific Rim was made, ultimately, because Guillermo del Toro's inner ten-year-old decided to make the bestest monster movie ever.
Note that I'm not being disdainful of mere commerce here. Obviously Pacific Rim was made in order to make a lot of money. And I'm sure the production team on Battleship did their damnedest to make it a good movie. But the difference in enthusiasm is palpable. One movie has the by-the-numbers feel of a homework assignment, the other is a love letter.
Contrast the original Pirates of the Caribbean film, which was also born from the desire to "build a media property" but which somehow also managed to spark the enthusiasm of the moviemakers. They tried to make the bestest pirate movie ever, and it was that enthusiasm which gave the series enough momentum to carry through two lackluster sequels.
Moviemaking isn't something a lone auteur can do in an attic. Even a "small" film costs a large fortune, which means that commercial concerns will always be paramount. But that doesn't mean movies have to be crap. No matter who's paying the bills, any movie can still try to be the bestest ever.
My first thought on seeing it was that while it was predictable (every character was a cliche with an obvious through line) and stupid, two things it wasn't were boring or insulting.
The opening monologue/info dump basically laid out "Giants monsters attacked and the best defense was giant robots," essentially answering every "hey isn't this kinda stupid question" with "Yes, but, Giant Robots." The film never asked you to believe a stupid thing that didn't stem from "yes, but Giant Robots." It didn't insult you by adding stupid thing that weren't in alignment with that initial premise. if you were on board with that you were on board with the whole movie.
This is just an extension of your original points - you are totally correct that the enthusiasm of the creators made a huge difference.
Posted by: Brian Rogers | 07/20/2013 at 04:45 PM