So, there’s a new trailer for director Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim. It’s above. It’s pretty intense – even by Pac Rim standards. However, on another YouTube channel not so far away, there’s also a new, not as sleek but equally entertaining trailer for Atlantic Rim – the mockbuster knockoff from the fine folks at The Asylum. How do they stack up? Let’s find out.
First, the new Pac Rim spot has a lot of new, albeit small, details about the movie. Things like the kaiju origin story (they came from a crease in the Earth under the Pacific Ocean) and … holy crap, does that Jaeger have Wolverine claws?! Damn. The Atlantic Rim trailer has no looks-like-its-made-of-Adamantium weaponry, BUT since this is the first trailer we’ve seen for the flick it is entirely new material. We’ll call this one a tie.
Second, the monsters. The kaiju in Pacific Rim are gorgeous (for kaiju, anyway) menacing creatures that look like they walked out of your worst Godzilla-themed, top-of-the-line-CGI-created nightmare. The monsters in Atlantic Rim look like the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park with a few add-ons. Rim takes this round for having better VFX, but considering the smallness of the Asylum operation, they get a hat-tip for producing something worthy of Steven Spielberg in 1993. So, it’s a tie? Maybe?
Now, the mechas. Ok, the Jaegers in del Toro’s picture look spectacular. They use tanker ships like baseball bats for goodness’ sake. In Atlantic? Well, those mechas resemble The Destroyer from Thor on a bad day. “A” for effort, though. But Pac Rim’s ‘bots are just too cool to beat.
Finally, the acting. So far neither offers much to go on, but that whole “Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!” from Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost has been chill-inducing in nearly every single Pac Rim trailer it’s been featured in and can beat the understatement-of-the-year line “it’s very, very large” any day. Point for Pacific.
All in all, judging entirely by trailers alone, it’s safe to say that Pacific Rim will easily be the better flick. However, Atlantic Rim, in true Asylum fashion, could be just as entertaining, even if it’s for all the wrong (yet right) reasons.
