What I thought of Pacific Rim.

I had no real expectations for Pacific Rim, so I think that may have helped it.  I had seen, but not read a couple of both good and poor reviews. 

Basic premise is simple, the world is being attacked by aliens from below the Pacific Ocean, and humans team up to build giant robots.  How could you go wrong with this you may say. Well Michael Bay managed to screw up giant robots fighting, so I guess anything is possible.

First of all, I thought the fight scenes were pretty well edited together. Lots of destruction, but you are made aware that protocols are in place to evacuate people and save lives. A lot of the time these could be scenes from a Godzilla movie.  Big action spots that only occasionally confuse the eye.  

The acting is mostly solid all the way through.  Edris Elba is on top form, as are the hero pilots of the robots.  However for me the movie has a Jar Jar, or rather a pair.  The two scientists, played by Charlie Day and Burn Gorman, are seemingly there for comedy entertainment as is the black marketeer played by Ron Perlman.  Their whole story is just stupid, and played for laughs.  My other issue is with the female lead, played by Rinko Kikuchi, has a major traumatic stress issue, and then suddenly it gets better.  This maybe due to the vote of confidence, or just written off as a "well sometimes the first time sucks" moment, but either way it is given short shrift.

My real issue with the film is, that it gets about halfway through and stops being a Japanese monster movie, and turns into Independence Day crossed with Armageddon. Complete with cheesy speech, and hero sacrifice, etc.

I enjoyed it, it was worth the money I paid, but it could have been better.  A bit more work on the second half would have improved it no end.  For me it gets 7/10