If it was Evangelion, every main character would have a nervous breakdown. If it was Gundam, well, same thing.

Pacific Rim:

Story:

The world has been invaded by aliens via a dimension warp hole in the ocean. In response to the invaders, the world leaders pooled resources to create a team of mechanized robots controlled by human counterparts.

Review:

Everyone loves giant robots. The Japanese especially, what with Evangelion and several different Gundam series gaining worldwide popularity. Therefore, it only makes sense that Guillermo Del Toro directs a huge monster and robot epic the likes of which have never been done before. Pacific Rim is that epic monster battle.

For those familiar with Evangelion and Gundam there are some similarities too obvious to notice, such as the human-robot connection, and for Evangelion, the violent force that opposes the aliens.

There even some similarities to Clash of the Titans, and The Avengers, as far as epic battles and the idea of people teaming up to stop collossal evils.

That is where the similarities end.

The biggest difference is that this is a live action no holds barred action fiesta with what I have to say are quite easily some of the best visual effects I have seen in ages. With a smaller difference being the lack of a lot of the angst that the Gundam franchise and Evangelion have tons of. Guillermo is at his best, creating a beautiful futuristic world that is both shattering and entrancing to look at. The creative destruction in these fights is too engrossing to ignore.

For once, one of these giant robot movies also has an equally engaging human side to it, with a story that is incredibly well connected. Though it does come off as a bit too cliched and with a tiny bit too much testosterone at points.

The soundtrack is surprisingly epic, though you'll almost never notice it with all the violent battles blaring in over the music.

A slightly bigger issue is the lack of known actors for a big budget film. There's maybe two or three actors you'll recognize, one of which worked with Guillermo on three previous films before landing his role in Pacific Rim. If you really want to know who it is, he spoke Spanish for his first film with Del Toro. Now, I know it seems shallow and obnoxious to say that, but given the amount of time spent creating this story, you want familiar faces so you don't have to figure out who the camera is focusing on, a problem which caused the audience in my theater some confusion.

All this being said, the main focus of the movie was visual effects. Something very evident from almost the get go. Not saying that the story and subplots aren't important, but as it was, most of the audience had visible issues focusing on the backstory and found it visibly easier to focus on the epic clashes.

Overall Pacific Rim is a great film, with what are by far the most amazing visuals in a Guillermo Del Toro film, and even though the story seems typical at points, it's still great. Recommended to everyone.