Action Packed, 'Pacific Rim' Full of Fun and Surprises

The premise, courtesy of IMDb: 
As a war between humankind and monstrous sea creatures wages on, a former pilot and a trainee are paired up to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon in a desperate effort to save the world from the apocalypse.

Here's what critics are saying:

A massive, lumbering behemoth of a movie, Pacific Rim resurrects the 'kaiju,' or giant monster genre, by returning to its roots in Japanese science fiction. Fun enough during its pounding action scenes, Pacific Rim has less to offer when it comes to story and characters. — Daniel Eagan, Film Journal 

After what seems like years of convoluted megamovies whose pretzel-like twists, turns, and double-crosses confound logic and confuse audiences, it’s incredibly refreshing to watch a film where the setup is simple, the mythology straightforward, and the execution consistently clear. — Todd Gilchrist, The Verge

In most ways, this paradoxically derivative yet imaginative sci-fi epic is everything every monster movie since the beginning of time might have wished it could be: In no way pinched budget-wise, it's got first-class special effects, crafty behemoths that calculate and react to circumstances in non-dumb ways, a smart director who injects a sense of fun and surprise whenever he can, a fair percentage of characters you don't mind watching, and a few decent plot twists. In this genre, that's saying something. — Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

'Pacific Rim' very much lives in comic book/pulp science-fiction territory, complete with comic relief scientists (Charlie Day and Burn Gorman). But a number of factors combine to make it a deeper movie experience. — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Laudable as its world-building is, the film drags not just in its interminable middle hour, but also during the redundant monster-on-mechawarrior smackdowns.

The 3-D is muddy and unnecessary, and certainly doesn’t make any of the half-dozen water troglodytes easier to see. Dimmer still is the trippy glimpse we get into the portal between dimensions. — Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

"Pacific Rim" is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief language. The movie runs 2 hours and 11 minutes.