The summer blockbuster is a Hollywood institution that has
proven to be highly profitable. It taps into certain formulas that are
perceived to appeal deeply to audiences that will return again and again to see
the same film. This audience, by and large, consists of a younger demographic,
and these films tend to combine a mixture of action with the charisma of proven
Hollywood stars. The relationships are portrayed broadly, and seem to revolve
around the following elements: young couples from different circumstances or
with different temperaments, friends who bond in a given social setting (the “buddy”
pics), and the perennial portrayal of “in” and “out” groups in conflict. There
is also a heavy dose of special effects in movies that tend to be premised on
fantasy premises as well as science fiction scenarios that revolve, over and
over, around the fear of invasion and conquest. (How realistic can these
scenarios be, as the astronomer Seth Shostak has noted, if we take into account
that an alien civilization able to cross interstellar space would of necessity
possess a vastly-superior technology that would render moot the possibility of
resistance?). In these blockbusters there is also, of course, an element of
escapism, rivalry between peers who compete for the affection of the woman,
almost always a woman in these male-centered epics, and scenarios of military
conflict that correspond to geopolitical concerns, or to phenomena such as
terrorism. These films are not particularly subtle, and instead tend to be loud,
punctuated as they are by repeated explosion or chase sequences that build to a
thrilling climax that, unfortunately, always tends to revolve around countdowns
and a spectacular explosion. There is little in the way of intellectual
stimulation and, indeed, this would interfere with the adrenaline rush these blockbusters
are meant to provide. These films, borrowing as I wish to do and appealing to
the full metaphorical sense of the title, are “No country for Old Men”, and no
material for those who have a modicum of education.
I was thinking about these components as I was watching
Guillermo Del Toro’s latest film, the blockbuster titled Pacific Rim. After
the first few minutes, I knew that this film was not meant for me, but decided
to stay to watch it until the end, against my better judgment. Del Toro is
known for having directed several films that we may categorize as belonging to
the genre of fantasy and horror, starting with his memorable Cronus. He has
also incorporated lyrical themes that have to do with the nature of repression,
and the political subtext in films such as Pan’s Labyrinth and El espinazo
del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone) is very much in evidence. He has also tapped
into popular culture, having brought to the screen Mike Mignolo’s comic book
character, “Hellboy”, yet another fable about an outsider who renounces his
fate and circumstances to chart an alternate course, what we would tend to view
as turning his back on his “natural” affiliation, only to uphold the dominant
(bourgeois) ethos of the social group that we can all identify with, which is,
that of western consumer culture. These, as well as the stylish Blade films,
may be termed action films, but they aren’t one-dimensional. They are
characterized at times by humor and wit, and at other times by an investigation
of the moral compass that guides individuals as they struggle to question the
imperatives of the societies that bind and encircle them. They have tended to
be masterful in their handling of tone, conveying at times nostalgia, at times
menace, and at times wonder as well as incorporating a lyrical note. For the
most part I’ve enjoyed Del Toro’s films, despite the fact that they are highly
commercial.
In his latest film, we have an homage to the monster movies
that were a mainstay of Japanese movie studios such as Toho films in the 50s
through 70s. These films featured an array of gigantic creatures, monsters ranging
from Godzilla to Gamera, Rodan to King Ghidorah, that were a mainstay of my
youth. These were giant monsters that were as tall as skyscrapers, and while
the earliest Godzilla movie featured an extended sequence in which the monster
tore through Tokyo on a path to destruction that encapsulated what appeared to
be a punitive mission against humanity, a punishment as if were for the sins of
humanity in the wake of the atomic age. It was a deeply mesmerizing film, and
it inaugurated a whole genre that morphed into a wholly different entity, films
that highlighted not only the upsetting of a natural balance (we have a “Smog”
monster that appears in a later film) but also movies that can’t be categorized
as anything other than thinly-disguised westerns, with humanity standing by
passively on the sides as they watched these monsters engage in combat. There
was interaction with humans as well, typically with children, as the Japanese
directors mined the deep fascination that children have always had with their
elders, who can at times assume frightening aspects akin to those of monsters.
Children also have an enduring fascination with these figures as well, as noted
in the enduring appeal of books such as Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, or the Pixar Monsters, Inc. movies (or the wolves of old in ancient fairy
tales).
The monsters in the Japanese films of this period all had
their own personalities, and it was easy to identify and in some way project
our hopes and fears on them. Godzilla, in particular, was domesticated as the
films progressed, and he came to seem like the embodiment, in oversized
dinosaur garb, of a curmudgeonly father, perpetually ill-tempered and
foul-breathed but also willing to enter the fray and defend humanity, defend
his son and defend the society of monsters. Gamera, the flying turtle, was like
an older brother, somehow more cerebral in my conception, always willing to
hear the entreaties of children and able to withdraw into his shell and fly
away, shooting flames while rotating. He always did seem particularly
protective of young children and, when it comes down to it, as I suggested
before, we could say that the monster movies were westerns transposed into the
modern age and urban setting, with gunslingers (or more accurately,
fire-breathers) who came from far away (the depths of the sea, outer space, “Monster
Island”) in order to uphold community values in the face of disruption by
outsiders. The spectacle of seeing these monsters, in sets that were designed
to accentuate this sense of scale, were always immensely appealing to me, even
if I always wondered why it was that beings made of organic materials felt
nothing when stepping on a tank and crushing it, while I always howled in pain
if I made the mistake of stepping on a hot wheel with my bare foot.
In Guillermo Del Toro’s latest film, the premise is that,
once again, outsiders come to threaten the community with destruction. In this
case, these are gigantic lizard-like monsters who come to be known as “kaijus”,
and they emerge from a trench under the sea, one that constitutes a portal
between dimensions. These monsters start out as blundering entities, attacking
cities located throughout the Pacific rim, but after being repelled, they come
to slowly evolve, so that they are assigned different categories. Humanity is
under threat, then, and in this latest instance of the Western genre, we have
need of a group of defenders, the Seven
Samurai, so to speak, who, as in Akira Kurosawa’s classic film, will band
together and overcome their differences in order to defeat this menace. These
are the mechas, the Jaegers (hunters) who are operated by
teams of two people who have a type of neural interface that allows them to
operate these mammoth beings. Why these operators have to be located within the
gargantuan metallic object and can’t operate it the way modern armies operate
drones escapes me.
What we have, unfortunately, is a case of blockbusteritis.
I came in knowing that the premise was fairly formulaic, having been done many
times before, and that furthermore this film was meant in some way to hark back
on the Japanese films we had seen before, thirty or forty years ago. But
somehow it didn’t translate very well, something that has been evident as well
in other recent remakes of classic monster films that have been updated (read,
spoiled by special effect and one-dimensional plots). Perhaps it has to do with
tone, and with the idea that there was always an emotional heart to the old
films that is not present in these bloated summer blockbusters of recent times.
Perhaps it is more difficult to care about yet one more scenario involving the
destruction of humanity, when we have become so jaded about the state of our
modern world, and when, as mentioned in this movie as a type of ecological
warning about the dangers of global warming, we have brought this once again
upon ourselves. At least in the monster movies that I remember from the past,
there was much less ideological ambiguity when we considered the children who
viewed these monsters from afar, and we could view them as innocent fables, as
westerns, so to speak. In this case, this emotional heart is lacking, and no abundance
of repetitive action sequences that feature mechas
(or, more appropriately, the term should be cyborgs, for these are humans interfaced
with gargantuan mechanical weapons platforms that take human form) can
compensate, not even when you throw the pro forma personnel conflicts that
involve the sacrifice of brothers, sons and mentors.
Very quickly the actions sequences grew stale. The premise
was one that was difficult to credit, but when you are playing it as realism,
and not as fable, it came to seem all the more like a cynical ploy to achieve
commercial success and to generate market demand for the associated products,
for the toys (one of the scientists in the movie has what seems to be a fetish
revolving around kaiju of different categories, to which he has assigned names
and categorized, as if he were in charge of future marketing), videogames and
assorted by-products that were sure to accompany this film. The giant cyborg
defenders are once again crewed by outsiders who are iconoclasts and non-comformists,
who don’t otherwise fit into modern society, but who are redeemed by their
talents. They can’t obey orders, because they have their own code of honesty,
their own moral imperatives. We have, once again, a group of pilots, and the
personnel who are in charge of supporting them, and we have the short-sighted
bureaucrats, the effete leaders, the politicians who lack vision and are unable
to give the necessary level of support or guidance. The pilots, in effect, are
fighting against each other (there are rivalries), fighting against themselves
(with unresolved family conflicts that torment their psyches), fighting with
their managers, and finally, fighting against the external threat posed by the
kaiju. Could the odds be more stacked against them?
There was a very notable cartoonish quality to these combat
sequences that grew repetitive very quickly. This is due, in large part, to the
emphasis on action sequences that is one of the guiding elements of all summer
blockbusters, combined as it was with computer-generated spectacle. After five
minutes I grew frustrated with the wrestling and martial arts moves of these
behemoth characters, as if immense creatures could swerve and pivot on a dime,
weighing as they did thousands of tons, and felt that there was no grounding
for a psychological understanding of the outsider. Yes, it turns out, they (the
kaijus) are soldiers as well, sent to “clean” out the human species so that
they can colonize the planet, but these monsters seem strangely anonymous,
despite their ferocious appearance. They spew acid, they have curling tails
that whip at their rivals (the jaegers/cyborgs), and they are capable of
playing dead, but frustratingly, they have no personality. Perhaps one may
argue that they are an alien species and that they can’t be anthropomorphized, but
if their mission is one that is fully comprehensible in human terms (that of
conquest and colonization), then we have already defined them in familiar
terms. What we have, instead, is a series of monsters who arrive and are sequentially
defeated, with the last one, the category 5 monster encountered at the trench,
being supposedly the most terrifying one.
What is comes down to is this: is this a political fable or
a simple wrestling match? Is this an allegory about the threat of invasion and
takeover, a la “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, or a homily about family
values and the need to reconcile, or a projection of fears that western industrialized
societies have with regards to immigration from their southern neighbors,
transposed, now, to another dimension (the trench as the tunnel that serves as
the passageway for subversives)? It is hard to make it out as such, when what
we see is another formulaic exercise that revels in bloated special effects and
simplistic interpersonal dynamics. It is hard to believe or see any passion in
this film, and it all seems forced, like the farewell between father and son
who are unable to continue as a team, or the limp romance between the
protagonist (Raleigh Becket) and
his Japanese female co-pilot (Mako Mori), the one who will supposedly reclaim
him after the tragedy in which he suffered the loss of his brother.
I suppose you have to be a certain age to enjoy summer
blockbusters. At times, these films can tap into hidden reservoirs of wonder,
and when combined with engaging human relationships, they can leave a lasting
imprint. Such was the case for so many of my generation, when we first saw “Star
Wars” back in the late 70s. It is not the case with this latest film by
Guillermo Del Toro that seems to turn its back on the playful, and at times
gleeful, but also admonitory note that he frequently incorporated in his films.
In the end, the movie, like the monsters that inhabit it, proved to be a highly
bloated special effects creation that was all ferocious and glitzy exterior,
but quite empty inside.
Give me the rubber suits but, also, the innocence of the old
Japanese monster movies any time.
OGRomero © 2013
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