I don't if there's ever been an movie that's divided the voices in my social media feeds so thoroughly as Pacific Rim. Over the past couple of weeks, its been roughly a 50/50 split between "this is the best movie this summer" and "this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen." I won't write off a movie I won't watch until it hits the rental market — this sounds like a great premise for a kid's movie, and I'm kind of sick of seeing adult commentators depositing both too much expectation and critical acclaim on popcorn flicks aimed at young audiences.
No one can deny the visual flair Guillermo del Toro heaps upon his films, and he's done exactly what any other comic book lover would have done when charged with making a monster movie. Ask any comic reader which artist designs the most original, scariest, freakiest creatures out there, and they'll likely say Guy Davis. So del Toro did the howlingly obvious thing and hired him as a concept artist for Pacific Rim. As usual with big blockbuster movies of this type, there's a glossy hardcover "Art of ..." book out there accompanying its release (In this case, Pacific Rim: Men, Machines & Monsters by David S Cohen), and this is the place to go to see Davis' work on the film.
There are a couple of blogs that specialize in long, lingering looks at these types of books, and a couple of them have cast their glances at Cohen's book. There's a few samples of Guy Davis' work on the production to be seen at both the Halcyon Realms and Parka Books reviews. Parka Books features a little flash video of the reviewer flicking through the book, offering another glimpse at its contents. I'd guess that whenever he gets the all-clear from the film's producers, Davis will start posting some more sketches for the project on his blog.
