Overall pretty entertaining, but fell a little short of most fronts. The story wasn’t anything too groundbreaking, but it’s enough to keep you invested in what’s coming up. This movie has a strong concept and it works overall: Giant Robots fighting giant monsters with the fate of humanity on the line. While these battles are well-done and well thought-out, everything seems to go down at night, or underwater or underwater at night, making it difficult to keep track of what’s going on and which robot is fighting which monster. The lead characters are all given enough backstory to flesh them out, but there always seems to be something lacking. For example, there’s other teams assisting in fighting off the monsters, but they feel like stereotypical background characters thrown in just to have an international team of robot pilots. There are a few moments of humor that break the tension, but I thought they could’ve slipped in a bit more without making things feel like a comedy. The finale brings together all the elements to a conclusion that has you emotionally invested in the fate of the characters and makes the journey worthwhile. There is a brief scene after the credits that I didn’t catch, but it didn’t sound like it was anything that important.
*** out of *****