Critics Consensus

Critics Consensus: Pacific Rim is a Visual Treat

Plus, Grown Ups 2 is lowbrow and mean-spirited.

by | July 11, 2013 | Comments

This week at the movies, we’ve got giant robots (Pacific Rim, starring Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba) and old buddies (Grown Ups 2, starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James). What do the critics have to say?

Pacific Rim

72%

Director Guillermo del Toro‘s work occupies the little-traversed area where the arthouse meets the fevered imagination of a hyperactive 10-year-old. And critics say that’s mostly a good thing in the case of Pacific Rim, a visually stunning modern creature feature that makes up in action what it lacks in characterization. When a swarm of undersea monsters threaten humanity, a crack team of pilots take up arms — in the form of giant robots — to stave off mass destruction. The pundits say Pacific Rim isn’t particularly deep, but it delivers the blockbuster goods in an unpretentious, affectionate fashion. (Check out RT’s video interviews with the cast of Pacific Rim, as well as our gallery of the biggest movie monsters.)

Grown Ups 2

8%

Critics found Grown Ups to be a lazy, lowbrow effort from talented people who should have known better; for Grown Ups 2, they’ve been even less generous, calling this sequel a mean-spirited, scatological, phoned-in bore. On the last day of school in a small New England town, Lenny (Adam Sandler) and his buddies (Kevin James, Chris Rock, and David Spade) reminisce about the old days, get into trouble with a group of frat boys, and throw a raging 1980s-themed kegger. The pundits say Grown Ups 2 is stunningly inept, an indifferently-crafted film featuring broad, tossed-off gags that barely rate a chuckle. (Check out this week’s Total Recall, in which we count down Sandler’s best-reviewed movies.)

Also opening this week in limited release: