Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim may not be the best film of 2013, but it's certainly one of the most enjoyable.
It is a spin on the popular alien invasion plot, but instead of them from coming space, the "kaijus" come from a portal located between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean - hence the title. According to the dates used throughout the film they first appeared in 2013, and have continually assaulted coastal cities over a seven year period (most of the film is set in 2020).

The science fiction adventure pits Guillermo del Toro in the director's chair for the first time since Hellboy 2 in 2008, with Charlie Hunnam (Green Street Hooligans, Sons of Anarchy) taking on lead status as Raleigh Becket.
We meet Raleigh and brother Yance at the start of the film as two of a group of people that enjoy rock star profiles. They are Jaeger pilots, and together control the giant machines (Jaegers) designed to combat the kaijus. Pilots are linked to each other by neural links, sharing memories, experiences and feelings so they can control the Jaegers.
The brothers go out to stop the attack of a kaiju, but are soon overpowered. Yance is killed in the attack while they are still connected, while Raleigh spends the next five years working on the construction of a great wall the length of the Pacific coasts to keep the attacking kaiju out.
The screenplay for this film is not exactly an Academy Award-winner, but the film's fight sequences are fantastic, even if del Toro over-indulges in destroying every city he can lays his eyes on.
I was not overly sold on supporting characters Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), who I did not think added too much to the story at all. Sure they were written into the script to give us a more scientific understanding of the kaiju (and how can you defeat aliens with science?), but their fast-talking presences were simply bizarre. Ron Perlmann's cameo as Hannibal Chau adds some more laughs to the film, including his post-credits sequence.
Idris Elba steals the show as Stacker Pentecost, the tough, battle-hardened African-American commanding officer. Elba gets all the one-liners, including an Independence Day-esque speech which you may recognise from the commercials ("Today, we cancel the apocalypse!"). Rinku Kikuchi performs brilliantly as Mako Miri, who becomes Raleigh's partner in the Jaeger Gipsy Dancer.
My biggest gripe with the film is nothing to do with the story, instead it's the casting of an American and an Englishman as the Australian Jaegar's crew.
No disrespect to Robert Kazinsky and Max Martini, but they pull off potentially the worst Australian accents I have ever heard. Sure they play their roles well, but if you want an Australian crew for the Australian Jaeger, consider a pair of Australian actors.
If you're a fan of the Michael Bay-produced Transformers series, kaiju films and stories (like Godzilla) or of science fiction in general, you'll love Pacific Rim.

Pacific Rim: 132 minutes (2013)