review of all but four minutes of pacific rim in ten text messages

It turns out that if you have surgery during the hottest week in August, and you don’t have air conditioning, you will spend a lot of time searching for ways to keep cool without moving around a lot. And you may end up seeing a midday showing of Pacific Rim at the two-dollar theater in Pasadena,* along with every other Angeleno who has two bucks and no air conditioning.

The ticket taker warned everyone in line: “There’s a four-minute gap in the middle of the movie.” We soldiered forward anyway, not unlike fighting-machine pilots facing an apocalypse at the hands of deep-sea alien monsters.

AK was already feeling iffy about the experience—she was disappointed that World War Z was sold out, and that this theater was not the ArcLight, and that I was sending her subtle judgy vibes for being too good for the second-run theater. When we couldn’t find seats together, she said she’d meet me in two hours.

So I live-texted the movie, which I’m posting for your enjoyment here, since she wasn’t all that entertained.

You should never have flushed him down the toilet when he was little.

1. Some kid walked thru the row looking for his retainer, which is why I feel fine about txting.

2. There are the requisite nerds on hand to do the exposition. Which nerd’s strategy is better—the crippled nerd with the Hitler haircut? Or the nerd with the monster tattoos and skinny jeans?

3. Everything screams “made for the international market”—bits of Japanese, Hong Kong army base, hot Japanese love interest. & for some reason Gwen Stefani is hanging around with a sleazy Russian guy not doing anything.

4. Gwen Stefani has a Russian accent & her mecha suit has tits.

I realize that, technically, this is the suit she wears to go inside the mecha suit, which may or may not be gendered.

5. To kill the last, fiercest monster, they’re using…a giant sword.

6. Oh wait, that wasn’t the last monster, because it was pregnant! Because clearly alien clone dinosaurs give birth to live young.

7. Movie also stars a gratuitous adorable bulldog. It has more screen time than Gwen Stefani.

8. Nerds: “The monsters are totally different than we thought & here’s what we have to do instead!” Army dude: “I don’t understand your fancy nerd talk! Let’s proceed with our plan to blow shit up until we discover you’re right one minute from now!”

9. But there’s a touching father/daughter story that made me cry a little.

Her adoptive dad would die to protect her. I knew that was what my dad was saying when he kept trying to buy me an air conditioner this weekend.

10. Brave hero sacrificed himself to save world/hot Asian chick. Vaguely Freudian in relation to father/daughter story? But wait, he’s gonna live! Dog barks joyously.

*I’m explaining this to the Insurance/Time Off Police, in case I’m being tracked like one of those people who wears a neck brace to his court date, then posts pics of himself riding roller coasters.