Film — Pacific Rim

Super-robot on daikaiju action? Of course I'm going to see that, even if it has been whitewashed -- it was heavily Anglospheric, with only token Japanese flavour -- after all, outside Mako's flashback, it looked like the kaiju had a lousy sense of navigation, and managed to keep missing Tokyo! What self-respecting atomic monster would go to Anchorage or Hong Kong instead? OTOH, definitely a case of "Let's hear it for the Aussies!", even if they did have to play second string to the Americans.

That aside, it did have genre feel -- the necessary "You leave me no choice. We'll have to use THAT!" and pulling out the effective attack only when on the ropes, for example. That may have been dumb in, say, Voltron, but here it's a nod to genre, so gets a bye.

The nerdy comedy relief scientists were not really necessary, apart from satisfying current day Hollywood stock casting requirements (in the same way the commanding officer is always black). At least it was unconventional in lacking an obtrusive romance sub-plot to get in the way of the action (or at best provide opportunity for a comfort break mid-movie a-la-Armageddon)

In sum, a pretty decent summer popcorn SFX movie.