Four years before The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro made Pacific Rim, a movie about giant robots punching giant monsters—and a movie that, thanks to Del Toro, had an inventive, oddball charm and a raggedly lovable personality.
While Pacific Rim embraced the bombastic goofiness of its city-wide kaiju battles—frequently soundtracking them with gleeful electric guitar riffs—it also had a surprising amount of heart, and del Toro was always eager to explore the bizarre details of its weird world.
Now there’s a sequel—and without del Toro’s touch, it’s basically gibberish.