Pacific Rim acts as a modern Action-SciFi film. Because of its crossover genre, the film crosses many boundaries in direction. Guillermo del Toro incorporates aspects of all three film modes with his latest movie. Toro’s film revolves around a war between separate dimensions, Earth and another realm where monster’s named “Kaiju” have found their way to earth via a portal only accessible through one end. Unable to thwart the monsters by conventional military means, the world powers unite to create “Jaegers”, giant robots controlled by two pilots, each controlling a hemisphere of the robot’s brain.
The dynamic between the pilots is where Toro weaves in aspects of formalism. Because of the tremendous strain on ones brain while controlling the robot alone, two pilots must link minds to control the mechanical giants. This link is where the two pilots’ flashbacks, emotions, and unfiltered memories are available to each other. The scenes where the pilots’ minds are being explored are when raw scenes are depicted in a very avant garde manner. A clip can be scene here.
The overall plot of the film lies in classicism though. The Classic hero’s tale is told, as Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) attempts to avenge his brother who died during combat with one of the Kaiju. The Kaiju entering Earth keep getting stronger, as the robots do the same. This allows for the classic fight scenes you would expect from an action movie on a much larger scale, reminiscent of the Godzilla films.
There is also a tiny bit of realism as the science aspect of the movie grounds us in reality. The film’s explanation for the Kaiju attacks lies with the Kaiju’s colonizing mentality. The film claims that Kaiju are responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, however they were unable to survive in the past climates. After global warming altered our earth’s atmosphere and pollution altered our ecosystem, the Kaiju are now able to survive our climate. This is where Toro incorporates a bit of social commentary and realism into his film, warning of the dangers of pollution (because y’know otherwise monsters will attack us). 