Pacific Rim

Description

.ask-product-docs-full-width-card-deck { margin-left: -1.4rem; margin-right: -1.4rem; } I'ma get this out of the way: The movie is ridiculous. The plot is predictable and full of brainless tropes, some of the acting is mediocre and the science fiction is actually quite bad. If you can move past those things or if they don't bother you while you're watching it's insane fun. Obviously fans of giant monster movies or mecha anime will find many of their sweet spots struck by the theme, but there's something different about getting it in live action from special effects wizards. I don't think we've ever seen sets and costumes like these actually made and populated with real people, certainly not this competently. The practical effects are fantastic and the action is legitimately thrilling. The monsters are horrifying, and the giant robot pace of the action gives your eyes all the time they need achieve maximum bulge as the Kaiju just brutalize the heroes and their surroundings. Because the monsters are so grotesque watching the heroes desperately brawl with them is harrowing. I'm not kidding. You'd think that because the movie has real flaws I couldn't honestly give it five stars without exaggerating. I'm a geek and I can get snooty at the writers over some of the plot conveniences or their confusion about how nuclear reactors work, but those things just don't make a difference against the jubilation of watching a titanic humanoid robot cold clock one of Del Toro's nightmare creatures. It is delightful and whatever the balance is on perks versus flaws this movie stuck with me as a fantastically good time, even over films that I'd have a harder time criticizing. And the music is wonderful. Start nodding your head to the hero's theme when you first see the pilots man the con. Feel the dread when the horns kick in as the monsters destroy them. If you haven't seen Pacific Rim yet, and you're wondering if you'll like it, I have one question for you: Do you want to see a giant robot punch a giant monster in the face? If you answered "yes", then you will like this movie. Pacific Rim is a great popcorn film. The story is present, which is about all I can say about it. The characters are larger-than-life caricatures. The acting is never so bad it's distracting. So what's the draw of this movie? Everything else! The art, style and special effects are unbelievably gorgeous. Set design is rich with color, texture, and detail. The costumes are beautifully designed and lovingly crafted. The robots and monsters are eye-popping screen candy. The world in Pacific Rim is fully realized and believable despite it's unbelievable premise. All of this attention to detail lends weight to the battles, making them truly breathtaking. In lesser hands, this movie could have easily turned into a hokey SyFy channel movie. But director Guillermo Del Toro knows how to make a special effects film, and jam packs every minute of this movie with pure excitement. Pacific Rim is like nothing else you've seen, and is consistently entertaining throughout. The blu-ray release does this movie justice and has one of the best digital transfers I've ever seen. The picture is crystal-clear and all the aforementioned detail pops. The audio is also outstanding, and the balance is perfect. Some movies (rarely, but sometimes) have bad audio balance, and the dialogue is too quiet and the sound effects are too loud, forcing me to adjust the volume constantly. Pacific Rim sounds clear and the balance is perfect, whether you're listening to a 7.1 surround sound system or just a simple 2 channel stereo. On the technical side, Pacific Rim's video and audio quality are perfect, giving you the closest experience to theatrical presentation as possible. The special features are interesting, but nothing really gave me insight into the making of the movie that I couldn't have already guessed. I was a little surprised to see how much of the movie was done with practical effects, and the giant working sets they built for the cockpit scenes was impressive, but otherwise it was the usual behind the scenes fare. The only behind the scenes features I've seen in recent memory that truly surprised me were The Matrix, TinTin and Avatar, because those were pioneering new technology. It is nice to see some of the concept art included in the special features, especially early designs for the Jagers and Kaiju. If you are trying to decide to buy this movie, then let me ask you this: Have you already seen this movie? If yes, and you enjoyed it, then go ahead and buy the blu-ray. This will give you the best possible presentation and will not disappoint. If no, odds are you're really going to like this movie and you should go ahead and buy it, but if you're really on the fence you may want to rent it first just to be sure it's your cup of tea. Oh, and if you don't yet have a blu-ray player, don't bother getting the DVD only version. You should get the Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack so you can watch the DVD now and enjoy the blu-ray when you upgrade to a blu-ray player. Trust me, you're going to want to see this in HD. If you do not enjoy Japanese giant monsters and anime robots, this is not the film for you; but if you do enjoy that sort of thing, you're in for a real treat. Director Guillermo Del Toro is really in his element here! "Pacific Rim" is wall-to-wall, non-stop fun with excellent acting and production values. The plot is as simple as can be; incredibly nasty (and completely implausible, scientifically impossible) aliens invade and humans respond by inventing incredibly powerful (and unlikely) machines. Although the human's machines are armed with guns, missiles, and plasma cannons, all the battles are essentially hand-to-hand combat between gigantic samurai. None of that silliness matters and in fact it might be part of the fun; this is a comic-book fantasy and it is relentless in its delivery of the genre. The leading actors all deliver convincingly sensitive performances, and Ron Pearlman is priceless as the reprobate dealing in illicit monster parts. The CGI work is excellent, though quite cartoonish as befits the genre. Hint: Keep watching after the credit crawl begins. There's a bit more waiting for you. Some fun background: You might be aware that Guillermo Del Toro was originally hired by Peter Jackson to direct the Hobbit films, and in fact Del Toro is credited as one of the writers of those films. After two years of waiting for a go-ahead on those films with no assurance that they would ever see the green light from Hollywood, he gave up on went home to work on his own projects (which led to Jackson eventually picking up the wand and directing those films). This is Del Toro's first major film after The Hobbit, and really his first big-budget production. (In the interim had had written a couple of novels and launched Mirada Studios.) We can only speculate how different things would have been if the Hollywood companies had been able to settle their copyright and bankruptcy problems faster so that Del Toro could have directed the Hobbit movies, but I suspect that we would have seen a lot more emphasis on action and less on character development and performance, to the detriment of both the Hobbit and the Pacific Rim stories. BOTTOM LINE: No, PACIFIC RIM isn't a perfect film, but it sure is tons of old school-styled monster mashing fun! It can be had now used on desertcart for cheap, so there's no reason not to own a copy if you love big robots and/or giant monsters. PACIFIC RIM has quickly become one of my favorite guilty pleasure flicks, no doubt about it. 4 STARS THE STORY (contains spoilers): In the near future, gigantic monsters ("kaiju") begin appearing through a mysterious rip/breech in space, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. World governments put aside their differences and work together to construct massive robots ("jaegers") to combat the freaky beasties toe-to-toe. The creatures begin to be defeated and things level out for a time, until larger and even more powerful kaiju arrive and the out-muscled jaegers start losing. Panicky politicians choose to funnel war chest resources towards the erection of huge walls in an effort to fence off the kaiju. The Jaeger Program will be scrapped once the walls are completed. The military leader of the jaegers and two unconventional scientists theorize that a nuclear device detonated midway along the dimensional breech connecting the kaiju world with ours could effectively collapse it. The four remaining Jaegers are transported to a base in China and plans are made to spearhead one final assault on the portal and seal it forever. But their greatest challenge yet awaits the jaegers & their courageous pilots, as three kaiju arrive simultaneously to stand guard at the edge of the breech, determined to crush the last of the jaegers and wipe out mankind. THOUGHTS: Yes, this motion picture is basically a live-action version of several interchangeable Japanese mech-anime toons. The story is rather simple-minded, the script is littered with corny dialog and the majority of the film is focused almost entirely on mega monster vs. titanic robot battles, at the expense of reducing the human characters to one-dimensional caricatures. But so what?!? This movie is enormous fun!!! If you love those classic kaiju collisions from Toho studios or cherish the mythical stop-motion monsters created by effects maestro Ray Harryhausen then this modern homage should really float your boat. It's lightweight popcorn entertainment that doesn't ask you to think too much, just sit back and watch huge robots punch the crap out of giant slimy monsters! It's a film for the 8-year old in all of us. The CGI is impressive, giving the Jaegers & kaiju a wonderful look that is both classic, yet hyper-realistic at the same time. The brutal battles evoke the grand days of Godzilla grappling with MechaGodzilla, Johnny Sokko's mechanical pal Giant Robot punching out the bizarre beasts from Planet Gargoyle, and the legion of anime robots from the 70's, 80's & 90's (Mazinger, Gaiking, Raydeen and Voltron, among others). If the names in that last sentence didn't stir any memories then you might not find much to rejoice about with this film, and that's fine. PACIFIC RIM isn't for everybody. Sure, I could nitpick the film, too, but I'm honestly just amazed & delighted that it even got made. It's so cool that Legendary Picture's head honcho, Thomas Tull, also happens to be a huge monster movie geek. Tull's money + super monster-nerd Guillermo Del Toro's crazy imagination = terrific reasons for fans of the good old days of giant monster mashing to shout with joy. If you want to see this same basic plot from the old days then pick up a copy of the Japanese TV show JOHNNY SOKKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT. The similarities are much too close to be mere coincidence. In fact, 3/4 JOHNNY SOKKO + 1/4 ROBOT JOX = PACIFIC RIM. THE BLU-RAY: This 3-disc hi-def presentation of PACIFIC RIM is an excellent effort. Picture looks exceptionally sharp and the sound thunders. (Seriously, the mix is level but LOUD!) The set includes both Blu-ray & DVD formats of the film, along with a separate Blu-ray of special features that contains a slew of great behind-the-scenes & "Making of" bonus features to up the value. I should say that I'm not a huge fan of science fiction (my experience is pretty limited to Firefly and a handful of other shows that don't quite count as science fiction), nor have I seen any del Toro films until Pacific Rim. I'm a film studies major though, so when a friend recommended it to me, I rented it. I watched it once and knew what I was going to get my dad for Christmas. I watched it again, and knew what I wanted for Christmas. Here's the gist: it's 2025 and the world (specifically the countries bordering the Pacific Ocean) has been ravaged by attacks from monsters, Kaijus, that are coming from a breach in the Pacific Ocean to inhabit Earth because we've "terraformed" it for them with our pollution (the film does NOT focus on that idea, though). People designed huge machines, Jaegers, to combat them and they were doing pretty well up until the monsters started adapting to their fight methods. The Jaeger program is on the fritz. Basically, all signs are pointing to everyone winding up Kaiju snacks. I usually try to avoid films that point towards apocalypse - I didn't watch Armageddon for years because of it - but Pacific Rim is different. It does exactly what a film is supposed to do. It establishes the world and the situation well, and there is tension in every scene - from Raleigh and Yancy vs. Knifehead to Herc and Chuck's argument in the Jaeger. Every character is established well just by their first appearance and the film doesn't stray from their characterization (I'm a big stickler for continuity, especially about characters, so I loved this). They aren't crude, either (save for maybe Chuck but he's the lovable jerk...right?), which is awesome. The sole female character (save for the female Kaidonovsky) is a badass and she's never looked at as a sexual object, she's viewed as a person. When Stacker won't let her pilot a Jaeger, it's not because she's a woman and she might not be able to handle it, or because she's weak, it's because she has a motive that could threaten the whole mission. Okay, I could write whole books about Mako, so I'll stop there, but she's amazing. In terms of plot, characters, and theme, it surprised me how well it did for a sci-fi film. I wouldn't say it's character-driven, but the characters are certainly a plus (did I mention Charlie Hunnam's shirtless? A lot? Charlie Hunnam's shirtless a lot.). As for how it's directed, it doesn't get distracting with any strange camera angles or Michael Bay-esque explosions. There are a few sequences that I had trouble focusing on, simply because it's dark and there are many things going on. The special effects are, of course, amazing. The Kaijus are intricately designed yet terrifying, and the Jaegers are awesome (wait till you find out how they work, it's cool and also curiously sentimental). The special effects give a look into the designing of the Jaegers and the Kaijus, and you can see just how devoted del Toro was to this project. There are only a handful of deleted scenes, which was somewhat disappointing to me. However, the other special insights in the interviews and features on the second disc are definitely worth it for anyone interested in the world of Pacific Rim. In a nutshell, this is probably one of the best films I've watched in a while. Had I known I would love it so much, I would have gone to see it in 3D. yea this movie is pretty much a classic in our household. It's got everything you want. Being someone who grew up happily watching movies where a guy in a Godzilla suit stomped on cars and bashed buildings, the preview I saw for "Pacific Rim" looked like just too much fun to pass up. This is definitely one movie I am so very glad I went to see, and would love to see it again. I am going to try very hard not to give anything away here and yet tell enough to let you know just how much fun this movie really is. First of all, this is not a Godzilla remake or update. Let's just say it appears the film-maker also grew up watching a lot of old monster movies and loved them. Not to be disrespectful of Godzilla, you understand, but the Kaiju in this film make our Godzilla look about as scary as the Geico lizard. They looked amazing, and were genuinely frightening even to a middle aged jaded person like myself. More than once I found myself with my back flattened against the seat in an attempt to put just a bit more distance between myself and what was on the screen. In addition, if you are also someone who has enjoyed Anime series like "The Big O" and "Evangelion", you will find a great deal to enjoy in this movie. Personally, I was thrilled. I was not familiar with any of the actors, they were all new to me. I thought they all did a fine job, though. It is after all an action movie, not a straighforward drama. Again, trying very hard not to tell too much, but the child who portrayed one of the main characters in the film, during scenes showing her childhood, did a particularly wonderful job. She had tears welling in my eyes at one point. There are touching moments in this film, as well as some unexpected humor. The audience in the movie theater where I attended were laughing out loud at several points. I really can't say enough about this film. If you are looking for monsters, giant robots, action, emotion, and just a rockin' great time, this movie can't be beat. Pacific Rim got hammered pretty hard by a lot of confused critics who apparently only know Guillermo del Toro from his more artistic magical realism work and somehow missed Hellboy, Mimic, and Blade 2. Pacific Rim belongs solidly to the latter camp, but it's a labor of love and is missing none of the flair that makes del Toro films so special. At its core it is essentially a Western Super Sentai film; heroes suit up in giant robots to battle monsters that are invading our dimension... And that's it. You can foist all sorts of allegory onto this movie if you want, and you can plumb it for deeper meaning- it's rich enough- but at the end of the day it's a thrilling adventure about friendship, big robots, and monster punching. Wet blankets need not apply. Short summary: a portal to an alien world opens under the ocean and giant monsters come out. The governments of the world team up to battle them, eventually doing so with Jaegers, huge robots piloted by two psychically linked pilots who must act in tandem to control their war machines. For a while this goes swimmingly, but the money dries up and the monsters keep coming, and soon the fate of the world rests on crusty and intensely likeable Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) who runs the world's last 4 jaegers in an endless war against the monsters out of Hong Kong. Pentacost has a plan to destroy the portal that brings the monsters to earth but to do that he recruits emotionally scarred Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) who must copilot with the impetuous and vengeful Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) for one last big mission. Cue a ton of fighting and explosions. This film showcases a lot of newcomer actors to great effect. The burgeoning friendship between Mori and Becket is particularly well done (it is best described as a guy-girl bromance really) and the rest of the cast does science, runs from monsters, or is Ron Perlman (yes that's a role now) very effectively. Idris Elba gets to play to his strengths very well here and chew a lot of scenery as an AGING HERO with SAD SECRETS, and lest you think that del Toro will craft a strong black lead then stick him in an office like every other director, rest assured that Pentacost punches monsters in a big robot too. Of course the fights are the meat of the film and they do not disappoint. The robots and monsters convey a powerful sense of size and weight, as their enormous fists, tails, and jaws gnash and hit with weight and authority. Fights are almost wholly digital affairs and perhaps to save money they are usually in rainy darkness, but they are still exciting and tense. The multi-stage throwdown in Hong Kong at the film's peak is one of the best giant monster battles ever committed to film and I say that as a die-hard Godzilla fan. Some critics have panned this film for a lack of depth, but the truth is that it does what it wants to- deliver a summer blockbuster- and it does so with unprecedented depth. Its writing, performances, and effects easily put it on par with The Avengers as a smart summer action romp, and to disrespect this film because it's not another Pan's Labyrinth is sort of like saying a really good ice cream sundae is undeserving of your time because it's not a baked Alaska. Lest we overlook it too, Rim is also an ORIGINAL film in an industry plagued by remakes, sequels, and general unoriginality. You don't have to buy it (although I would) but you should absolutely see it in theaters or rent it at least once. Don't miss out. PROS -Endearing performances from a young cast (with help from some veterans) -Way, way better than Cloverfield -Blends Artsy del Toro's flair for eerie creatures and dream imagery with comic geek del Toro's love of SMASH POW BAM -Effective ear bug soundtrack will stick with you -Really good 3D if that's your thing CONS -Some of the other Jaeger crews are not very well developed -The very beginning crams a lot of exposition in pretty fast UPDATE 10/21/2013 So I received and watched the disk. The standard version of Rim comes in a handsome slipcase with a fun holographic cover that APPEARS to be removable (although a true collector won't want to of course...). The BD itself is easily navigable and all trailers are skippable. There is a whole other disk of special features which I have not yet watched. Overall this feels very premium, more like a collector's edition than a basic retail set. The case doesn't even have cutouts to save material as many BD cases do nowadays. Picture quality is outstanding overall. On the small screen, and without the slight softening effect of 3D, this actually reveals some sort of cheap-looking CGI in the first Kaiju encounter during the opening narration*. Thankfully, subsequent battles look great. The movie is free from excessive cleanup and boasts the odd bit of grain, making it look very filmic and natural, even when big monsters and big robots are clubbing one another with bits of dockyard. Audio is suitably bombastic and rich, with voices, music, and effects all mixed to a consistent, listenable volume range (I'm looking at you, first two Iron Man films on home video). Overall this is a great Blu Ray and watching it at home the film held up to my initial high opinion. * This is probably because much of this sequence was produced long before editing of the remainder of the film was completed. This is one of the coolest monster movies in years. This movie is directed by the visionary director, Guillermo Del torro (HellBoy, Blade 2). The movie has tons of special effects, visual effects and monster sets that will take your breath away and is a lot bigger than Transformers.Every giant robot has been designed uniquely suiting to the different countries. Excellent detailing has been taken care for the animated Robots and the Kaiju monsters. Charlie Hunnam, Idris elba give some sparkling performances in the film and some comic relief from actors Charlie day, Burn Gorman and Ron Perlman. As for the DVD package it has two DVDs inside; One has the movie itself which is a DVD-9 disc and the other disc which is a DVD-5 contains a host of special features including the making of the film and lots more. The movie disc packs an excellent Audio/Video and has a great quality ideal for home theatre applications. Thanks to desertcart for the great packing and extremely fast delivery as always!!Good work desertcart!!! Che altro dire di questo film, è bellissimo, uno dei migliori del 2013, effetti speciali fantastici, storia semplice ma bella, vedere sti robottoni ENORMI prendere a mazzate e distruggere gli alieni e viceversa è uno spettacolo che vale il prezzo del Bluray !! Il 3D merita davvero !! finalmente è in 16/9 e con il mio videoproiettore si vede ENORME !!uno dei 3D migliori mai visti, lo metto vicino a Avatar, Titanic 3D, Transformers 3 3D e Hugo Cabret, la profondità è eccellente in tutte le scene, le immagini non sono mai troppo scure, anche con poca luce il 3D è sempre spettacolare e molto spinto. l' Audio purtroppo è un Dolby Digital 5.1, fa il suo dovere ma un dts HD sarebbe stato tutta un' altra cosa, ho dovuto mettere il volume dell' amplificatore quasi al massimo. Film : 9 video 3D : 10 Audio : 7,5 Lo consiglio vivamente a tutti gli amanti dei film d' azione, in 3D poi è davvero grandioso !! Comprada la versión francesa 4K UHD porque la de España me querian sacar mas de 30€. Después de comprobarla está en PERFECTO CASTELLANO, así que comprar sin miedo, que se ve de "cine". No entiendo a la gente que en vez de valorar el artículo, la transacción con desertcart, etc... se ponen a valorar si la peli es buena o mala, como si esto fuese filmaffinity o algo así. Pelicula verificada en perfecto castellano la versión 4K francesa, (el bluray es lo que no he probado ; ) Tout est dans le titre!!! Le meilleur blockbuster de 2013!!! Même si on attend la suite du Hobbit avec impatience, on a affaire ici au spectacle le plus généreux que cette année nous a donné, en plus le scénario pour une fois est cohérent et pas complètement à la ramasse comme dans Transformers 3!!! Du cinéma vraiment spectaculaire, un vrai film d'action avec des effets spéciaux visuels absoluments magnifiques, des héros vraiment héroïques enfin vraiment tout ce que j'attend de ce genre de film quoi!!! De l'action, du spectaculaire, un truc à peu près cohérent, des héros que j'aime et surtout une vision artistique cohérente, et pour ça Del Toro est un des meilleurs réalisateurs vivants, le gage de qualité artistique absolu qu'on puisse donner à un film!!! Et là les amis il s'est vraiment laché!!! N'allez pas voir ce film en pensant au labyrinthe de Pan, pensez plutôt à Hell Boy 2... En fait j'ai envie de dire que ce film est a réserver à tout les vieux gamins (et ce n'est pas péjoratif) qui ont rêvé en voyant la Guerre des Etoiles et Jurrasik Parc, à ceux qui ont envie de l'aspect montagnes russes du cinéma populaire. Ce film est vraiment une réussite et on en a enfin pour son argent! Et ce n'est pas rien de le dire parce que ça fait un moment que j'attend de voir un truc qui m'épate en rentrant dans un cinéma!!! Pour ce qui est de la présente édition Blu-ray que dire sinon que l'image est vraiment superbe et que le son n'est pas en reste et que pour une fois la 3D n'est pas un gadget rajouté, les effets étant ici particulièrement bien intégrés au film (à la Titanic 3D). Un véritable bonheur! C'est probablement la meilleure édition francophone disponible pour le moment et je vous conseille vivement de vous jeter dessus. Für mich ist der Film einer der besten überhaupt. Das CGI ist ein richtiges Brett was bis heute keiner mehr nachgemacht hat in dieser Qualität. Zudem in 4K und HDR noch geiler. Auch das HDR ist mit das beste was ich je gesehen habe. Dieser Film auf einem Oled TV ist der absolute Wahnsinn Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. Learn more how customers reviews work on desertcart Review: Indulgent joy - I'ma get this out of the way: The movie is ridiculous. The plot is predictable and full of brainless tropes, some of the acting is mediocre and the science fiction is actually quite bad. If you can move past those things or if they don't bother you while you're watching it's insane fun. Obviously fans of giant monster movies or mecha anime will find many of their sweet spots struck by the theme, but there's something different about getting it in live action from special effects wizards. I don't think we've ever seen sets and costumes like these actually made and populated with real people, certainly not this competently. The practical effects are fantastic and the action is legitimately thrilling. The monsters are horrifying, and the giant robot pace of the action gives your eyes all the time they need achieve maximum bulge as the Kaiju just brutalize the heroes and their surroundings. Because the monsters are so grotesque watching the heroes desperately brawl with them is harrowing. I'm not kidding. You'd think that because the movie has real flaws I couldn't honestly give it five stars without exaggerating. I'm a geek and I can get snooty at the writers over some of the plot conveniences or their confusion about how nuclear reactors work, but those things just don't make a difference against the jubilation of watching a titanic humanoid robot cold clock one of Del Toro's nightmare creatures. It is delightful and whatever the balance is on perks versus flaws this movie stuck with me as a fantastically good time, even over films that I'd have a harder time criticizing. And the music is wonderful. Start nodding your head to the hero's theme when you first see the pilots man the con. Feel the dread when the horns kick in as the monsters destroy them. Review: Best Giant Robots vs Giant Monsters movie ever! - If you haven't seen Pacific Rim yet, and you're wondering if you'll like it, I have one question for you: Do you want to see a giant robot punch a giant monster in the face? If you answered "yes", then you will like this movie. Pacific Rim is a great popcorn film. The story is present, which is about all I can say about it. The characters are larger-than-life caricatures. The acting is never so bad it's distracting. So what's the draw of this movie? Everything else! The art, style and special effects are unbelievably gorgeous. Set design is rich with color, texture, and detail. The costumes are beautifully designed and lovingly crafted. The robots and monsters are eye-popping screen candy. The world in Pacific Rim is fully realized and believable despite it's unbelievable premise. All of this attention to detail lends weight to the battles, making them truly breathtaking. In lesser hands, this movie could have easily turned into a hokey SyFy channel movie. But director Guillermo Del Toro knows how to make a special effects film, and jam packs every minute of this movie with pure excitement. Pacific Rim is like nothing else you've seen, and is consistently entertaining throughout. The blu-ray release does this movie justice and has one of the best digital transfers I've ever seen. The picture is crystal-clear and all the aforementioned detail pops. The audio is also outstanding, and the balance is perfect. Some movies (rarely, but sometimes) have bad audio balance, and the dialogue is too quiet and the sound effects are too loud, forcing me to adjust the volume constantly. Pacific Rim sounds clear and the balance is perfect, whether you're listening to a 7.1 surround sound system or just a simple 2 channel stereo. On the technical side, Pacific Rim's video and audio quality are perfect, giving you the closest experience to theatrical presentation as possible. The special features are interesting, but nothing really gave me insight into the making of the movie that I couldn't have already guessed. I was a little surprised to see how much of the movie was done with practical effects, and the giant working sets they built for the cockpit scenes was impressive, but otherwise it was the usual behind the scenes fare. The only behind the scenes features I've seen in recent memory that truly surprised me were The Matrix, TinTin and Avatar, because those were pioneering new technology. It is nice to see some of the concept art included in the special features, especially early designs for the Jagers and Kaiju. If you are trying to decide to buy this movie, then let me ask you this: Have you already seen this movie? If yes, and you enjoyed it, then go ahead and buy the blu-ray. This will give you the best possible presentation and will not disappoint. If no, odds are you're really going to like this movie and you should go ahead and buy it, but if you're really on the fence you may want to rent it first just to be sure it's your cup of tea. Oh, and if you don't yet have a blu-ray player, don't bother getting the DVD only version. You should get the Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack so you can watch the DVD now and enjoy the blu-ray when you upgrade to a blu-ray player. Trust me, you're going to want to see this in HD.