CCW.

An Acronym You're About to Understand

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, I give you the first of many Rebel Brothers Cinema Civil Wars!

For our debut, we have in Tucker's (my) corner James Wan's The Conjuring and in Mike's corner Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim.

We saw them back to back over the weekend. 
Each of us will try to convey why the film we're defending is superior.

*****Spoilers below!!!!!! Read at your own risk!!!!!******

I'll start. 

Mike, let's start where we began after leaving the theater. We both mentioned that Pacific Rim would certainly be our unequivocal, undoubted favoritest movie of forever-ever if we were 12. Even more so than Waterworld, which hasn't been dethroned from its #1 spot since even before it existed. One of your qualms about The Conjuring was it's lackluster scariness, and how tarred and feathered by its PG-13 rating it was. Well, if I were 12 I would have been scared so shitless by The Conjuring I would have found the PG-13 rating merciful. It would also have made a number of prestige horror films feel stale if I hadn't seen them yet. The Conjuring basically populated a haunted house with heart-quickening tropes and techniques from all over the cannon horrorscape. Cue slow zoom. 

Something I felt the two films had in common was each one arrived at the table fully loaded with possibilities. Pacific Rim had robots, giant monsters, Idris Elba, and GLADDOS's voice actress--check. The Conjuring had its creepy doll, clap game, crawl spaces, the mirror/music box, basically a plethora of devices that could have triggered throughout and made something interesting to happen. But did either movie build a castle in its sandbox? Not plain to see. 

My 'rocket punch' (loved every single term in Pacific Rim) in The Conjuring's favor is that its performances were unmistakably superior. Everyone there at least 'held it down,' so to speak. Meanwhile, in Pacific Rim leads Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi had about as much chemistry as a wet cardboard box and a second, more wet, even more flaccid, useless cardboard box.  Especially considering that their plot point hinged so crucially on their ability to 'merge,' shouldn't I buy at least the most basic interlocution between these two? Which reminds me about my confusion during their training scene. During their 1-on-1 fight before the commander they traded off wins but kept a tie match to illustrate their connection. If these pilots were truly mind-meld compatible shouldn't the whole thing be one big stalemate without either cadet landing a single blow? Like a ballet of blocks? Think tai chi wash. 

Ugh, I don't even want to get into the scientists. Or the Top Gun banter between Australian dude and protagonist (and I've never even seen Top Gun, just inherently knew that's what it was). 

Lastly I was completely with you post-screening that the stakes surrounding the clairvoyant's episode from a previous exorcism in The Conjuring amounted to nothing. Seriously, what the hell was that, a total throwaway? Admittedly The Conjuring was saturated with roads to nowhere. In defense however I'd like to point out a clumsily used stakes-device in Pacific Rim. Pentecost's affliction with cancer comes out just before he's about to sacrifice himself to save the world. Doesn't the fact that he's going to perish anyhow undercut this sacrifice? Also were we really supposed to believe he just had constant nosebleeds for no reason?  I for one await the day when a movie character has endless nosebleeds without explanation.     

Ready for your rebut, Mike. 

Courtesies. 




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Okay.  My Turn.

Let's get any and all talk about The Conjuring out of the way as quickly as possible.  I know I walked out saying "yeah, that was a piece of shit", but I don't think you realize honestly that this is the piece of shit left by a 30-year old elephant with amoebic dysentery. Fucking hell. Fucking hell.

Maybe I'm jaded because I've grown up on horror movies as a child and the whole "exorcism" genre of horror has never done it for me.  I always walk out feeling like I saw a religious propaganda film; that the power of Jesus will save you from the demons that lurk around in your darkened scary areas of the house. I noticed you also commented that this got an R rating.  Seriously?  A dog died and a dude got his cheek scratched.  Probably the biggest pussy of a demon I've ever seen.  The plot was, even for a horror movie, pretty vacant. Family moves into house, oh no a demon, hire clairvoyant husband/wife team to root out evil, have exorcism, goodnight ladies and gentlemen. I think at the end of the day it just takes itself way too seriously (based on a true story? Suck my dick.) and just fell on it's face for me. The acting was the one facet I can think of that didn't bother me, everyone turned in decent to good performances, I just thought the material itself was paper thin.

Pacific Rim, on the other hand, was just what I needed after that experience. My god man, those special effects.  I love how you included that this would be our favorite 12-year old movie, because I'm pretty sure I just turned 13 emotionally and still love this type of shit.  Give me some semi-retarded actors, some fantastic visuals, and no romance plot whatsoever and I'm willing to see where it goes. I think it's hilarious you point out the Top Gun relationship in the film because I couldn't stop thinking about that comparison when watching it.  Granted, Pacific Rim doesn't pull it off half as well as Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise did over.......20 years ago? 25? Fuck, I'm old.

So what?  This film isn't about oscar-winning performances, it's about giant robots fighting aliens that travel through a dimensional rift in the Pacific Ocean for god's sake.  At least Idris Elba was there so white people could point out that he played Stringer Bell in The Wire. The biggest annoyance for me, or probably both of us with this flick was the dumbass scientists; one of which played by Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. These guys wasted probably a good half hour of this movie trying to provide comic relief when I didn't even ask for it in the first place.  I felt like they could have cut out their plotline, including the dumb revelation they make, and this would have been a fucking leviathan of a summer movie.

So was it still great?  I think so.  I put it maybe a couple tiers below Independence Day, which is undoubtedly the best summer movie of all time, and I think that says a lot. The plot is admittingly thin and goofy, but it is still a ton of fun and didn't harsh my buzz like The Conjuring did. 

"WE ARE OUT OF AMMO!!!! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO????

I DON'T KNOW HOW ABOUT THIS GIANT FUCKING SWORD THAT WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN USING THE ENTIRE TIME?????"

-Pacific Rim