Plot:
In a few words: aliens invaded our world, we built robots to fight them. Things go down for years until someone chooses to risk it all, a final showdown to stop them forever.
I’ll add details, but I’ll say there’s the jerk that will redeem himself by dying a hero, there’s the obligatory girl to show the world this production is not misogynist and no other reason, there’s a lot of yelling from the two scientists in an attempt to provide comedy, I guess :-/ there’s The Speech because there has to be a big speech in these movies; in a way there’s everything you’d expect from it, but I’d just like them to make a clear decision on what to focus on.
Now details:
At first aliens “entered our world” from “deep beneath the Pacific Ocean”. The Breach is basically “a portal between dimension”. Only one came through and it was enough to cause many many deaths. And then it happened again and again. Four attacks and who knows how many deaths later, people realized “this was not gonna stop”.
Wow.
So the world acted together “for the sake of the greater good” and “the Jaeger program was born”.
They built huge robots that were to be controlled by two people. They’d go inside and they’d need to interface with each other and the Jaeger. A neural connection. A mind-meld. Finally, after months, they started winning and winning, “so Jaeger pilots turned into rock stars, danger turned into propaganda, Kaijus into toys” because this is the society we have. So believable.
After seven years, brothers Yancy and Raleigh Becket pilot the Jaeger called Gipsy Danger. This time, they lose and Yancy dies while they were still connected. The Kaijus started adapting, learning, evolving, and the Jaegers kept losing. Raleigh left.
Five years of losing and the world’s powers decided to stop the program. “We will authorize you to take all remaining Jaegers to the last battle station, Hong Kong”, and that’s it.
Funds for eight more months and no more.
To protect people, huge ‘walls of life’ are built, metal walls ‘deemed unbreachable’, yeah, sure.
Raleigh goes around working on these walls when Marshal finds him. “I’ve spent the last six months activating everything I can get my hands on”, because he knows things are bad and still thinks the Jaegers are the answer. He wants Raleigh to pilot his old one. Raleigh is not eager to have another mind-meld but Marshal is sure the world is ending, so “where would you rather die? Here, or in a Jaeger?”
He agrees, of course, and meets Mako Mori, “one of our brightest”, who wants ot be a pilot but Marshal is worried about her emotional state. Of course, she’s a girl…
Her story is rather dragged and takes too long: when she was a little girl, a Kaiju destroyed everything and everyone around her until a Jaeger stopped it, and Marshal was the pilot, so he raised her. Now she follows him, not out of obedience but out of respect.
There are two scientits, Dr Gottlieb who works with numbers and predictions, and Dr Newton Geiszler who works with Kaiju parts, studying their anatomy and stuff. Not caring that he was told not to do it, he “drifts” with a piece of recovered Kaiju brain.
Truth is, this mad scientist is what went different this time around, he saved the world.
The “Resistance”, as Marshal calls them, sees a new-gen Jaeger with three pilots, triplets, the Wei Tang brothers; Sasha and Aleksis Kaidanovsky pilot another one - no word on their relationship, they could be brother and sister or married, who knows.
Hercules Hansen knew Raleigh already and they respect each other. His co-pilot and son Chuck does not and says out loud what he thinks: that he’s “dead weight”, that Raleigh will slow him down, “he’s a has-been” and of course since there’s a girl the b..ch word appears just because, but cocky as he is, he loses the fist-fight with Raleigh that follows.
The plan is to go “for the Breach”: Hansen’s Jaeger will carry a “2400 pound thermonuclear warhead” and two other Jaegers are to protect it so they can do it. Gottlieb’s numbers tell him the number of Kaijus will increase and this “increase traffic will force the Breach to stabilize and remain open long enough to get the device through and collapse its structure”.
Mako doesn’t think Raleigh is the right choice because he never follows protocols and takes dangerous risks and yet she’ll be more than happy to pilot together…
Newt does it and is sure these clones are not “just following some sort of animalistic urge”, they’re attacking “under orders”. Newt says that these beings are “colonists”, “they overtake worlds, they just consume them and then they move on to the next, and they’ve been here before in sort of a trial run. It was the dinosaurs”
But back then it was not the right atmosphere for them, too clean, so “they waited it out, and now with ozone depletion, and carbon monoxide, polluted waters, well, we’ve practically terraformed it for them”. He says: “the first wave, that was just the hounds, their sole purpose was to aim for the populated areas and to take out the vermin. Us. The second wave, that is the exterminators, and they will finish the job and hten the new tenants will take possession”.
To know more he’d need “a fresh Kaiju brain” to drift with again, so Marshal sends him looking for Hannibal Chau who runs a black market that deals with Kaiju parts, all their remains are used for something.
… well, I would have thought the government would take those bodies to study them and make every possible experiment they could think of, instead they’re just cut to pieces and sold…
Mako’s first try as a pilot does not go well, she gets lost in the memory of the terrified little girl. Raleigh says that trust is necessary and their drift was strong, but he also had the baggage of his brother’s thoughts and feelings when he died.
The Jaegers are brought onto the various battlefields by being lifted and carried by helicopters… which honestly looks silly, makes them look like toys, dolls moved around, and also looks kinda impossible, I’m no scientist but the Jaegers are huge and must be really heavy, too heavy for eight helicopters to carry around. Yeah, one might say: special metal so the robots are not all that heavy, and also special helicopters ultra mega strong, but still.
Next battle goes badly because the Kaiju has a new weapon and it blasts the “Jaegers’ electrical circuits”, they lose the Hong Kong brothers and the two Russians. The Hansen are saved by Raleigh and Mako because their old Jaeger is not digital like the new ones, “Gipsy’s analog, nuclear”.
Newt finds Hannibal and is there when two Kaijus attack Hong Kong city. Newt: “there’s never been two before” and Hannibal is the one to explain what we’re all wondering: “maybe that’s because nobody ever drifted with one before, eh? Genius! When Jaeger pilots drift, it’s a two-way street”. The connection is set “Both ways! A hive mentality, you said! Maybe those Kaiju are trying to find you” so he tries to hide but they find him… still the battle is won thanks to Gipsy, and Newt waits for Hannibal’s men to find him a brain.
This one Kaiju was pregnant, though, and a ‘little one’ comes out trying to attack, but it gets strangled by the ombelical cord - what about them being clones? Or just the first ones and not these?
It manages to swallow Hannibal before dying… he’ll cut his way out over the ending credits.
Newt and Gottlieb drift together with the baby Kaiju, and understand that the Jaegers need to take a Kaiju with them to get through the Breach.
Dad’s injured so Chuck goes with Marshal who is dying of radiation poisoning. He makes his Big Speech “today we are canceling the Apocalypse”. Marshal calls Chuck “an egotistical jerk with daddy issues” but they drift ok. Newt takes a helicopter to come warn them (!)
Unlike Chuck, Marshal is one who thinks and wonders why the Kaijus stop attacking as they near the Breach. Gottlieb was right and a third Kaiju comes out, and it’s somehow easy for them all to know it’s a “category 5”, despite it being “the first ever”.
Now, it’s not clear to me why, but for some reason Striker can’t go on so Marshal and Chuck blow up their bomb taking out the Kaiju they have while Gipsy finishes the mission because they are “a walking nuclear reactor”. Gipsy takes “the Kaiju carcass” and head for the Breach. They go down. Short on oxygen, Mako leaves first in a pod while Raleigh sets the explosion manually before ejecting his own pod.
I liked his words to Mako: “I can finish this alone, all I have to do is fall. Anyone can fall”.
It works, the Breach collapses, and helicopters fly to retrieve the pods from the ocean. They both make it of course, and they hug in relief, and there’s no inappropriate kiss, good.
Hercules is now Marshal, “the Breach is sealed” and it’s over.
Nice last scene, forehead to forehead, relief that it’s over, cute picture as well.
Raleigh is Charlie Hunnam
Pentecost (Marshal) is Idris Elba
Mako is Rinko Kikuchi
Gottlieb is Burn Gorman
Herc Hansen is Max Martini
Chuck is Rob Kazinsky
Hannibal Chau is Ron Perlman
Young Mako is Mana Ashida
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