Despite not getting a Super Bowl spot, the film that seems to most encapsulate the summer blockbuster stereotypes (well, perhaps besides Fast & Furious 6) in 2013 is Guillermo del Toro‘s monsters vs. robots epic Pacific Rim. After a loud, mayhem-ridden, action-filled trailer, Warner Bros. has held its first test screening for the film around five months before its set to hit theaters and the response has seemingly gone over well. First up, the most notable of attendees was none other than Looper writer/director Rian Johnson, who praised the “gorgeous” visuals and said, “Go into Pacific Rim prepared to be transmogrified into a 12 year old. And then to pee your pants with joy. I love it so much.”
Outside of that high praise, PacificRimMovie.net rounded up the rest of the reactions, which one can see portion of below. The runtime is rumored to be just over two hours in its current state, with one response reiterating the film delivers on the wild action that the trailer promises. Considering we have a ways to go before anyone else sees this, we’ll simply have to wait and see if it indeed follows through. In the meantime, followed by the reactions, USA Today has unveiled a batch of new stills, so check out everything below for the film starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Ron Perlman.
Bryan Chojnowski @BryanInSpace (Twitter)
Just saw an early cut of Pacific Rim and it is pretttttty cool.
Eric Church @HoursOfWealth (Twitter)
Saw a pre-screening of Pacific Rim… it is amazing.
Alex Irvine @alexirvine (Twitter)
So, yeah. You’re going to want to see Pacific Rim.
IMDb user OriginsOfRuin:
I just got back from the screening (though I’m not this guy’s friend, haha), and I freaking loved it. That’s all I can really say, but the FX are flat out incredible (the ones that were done) and the story is solid. I didn’t know Charlie Day was in it, and being a big fan of It’s Always Sunny, that was a pleasant surprise (he fits his role perfectly).
Overall, it’s probably the best summer monster movie I’ve seen, and out of summer movies in general, falls behind the new Batman series, but that’s about it. I wrote on their response form that they should be proud of the movie and that I’m glad it’s not another Transformers clone (re: Battleship). They killed it!
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Let’s be honest, it’s not meant to be a complex, character-driven movie like the Batman franchise. There are huge monsters, humans fight them with big machines, and that’s your basic story. Beyond that, it’s easy to root for the characters and the action set pieces and monsters are incredible and awesome. It’s the summer action movie Transformers should’ve been, but failed epically at.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes–a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)–who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
Pacific Rim arrives on July 12th.