PACIFIC RIM

* * ½

(High tech monster flick)

If it wasn’t for the 3D, color and special effects, I would swear I was watching a Godzilla movie. Joyce wisely skipped this one, which requires ear plugs, two aspirin and a reality check.

The world is on the brink of destruction, thanks to these gigantic sea monsters called kaiju. World leaders get together in a gigantic facility to build huge robots called jaegers that are controlled by two rangers, representing the right and left brains. The two have to be compatible, attaining that level by mind-melding, which means getting into each others memories.

That’s about as far as the cerebral aspects of this two and a quarter-hour movie takes you. The rest is all lengthy battles between the monsters and the robots.

Oh, there is a love story. And a bit of history about the main characters. But this is mainly a high tech, computerized mish-mash that will entertain those who like this stuff.

There’s a long prologue where we meet our hero (Charlie Hunnam), who has been battling the monsters with his brother, who is killed. The jaeger program is scheduled for the scrap heap, as the leaders decide to build a gigantic wall along the Pacific Rim.

The jaeger guys know this will not work and continue their efforts. How humans in a lab with heavy metal suits can project themselves into the oceans and cities of the world, controlling their robots to do what they act out, is beyond belief. But hey, this is science fiction, so anything goes.

There is a pair of weird scientists trying to figure things out as the world moves rapidly towards complete destruction. Will they come up with the answers in time? Will our heroes survive?

You can’t take this movie too seriously, and some may enjoy the endless battles. For me, it was just too much.

Rated PG-13, with nonstop violence and scenes of the darkly projected monsters that may scare the little ones, who shouldn’t be there in the first place.

The comic strip “GIL” ran a series where Gil’s mother won’t let him see it, so he goes with his dead-beat macho dad. His mother was much wiser.