Pacific Rim 2: Actor Charlie Hunnam believes that story needs to be prioritised over special effects

Pacific Rim was not exactly a ground-breaking film and neither was it a bad, mindless action film. The fact that the studio greenlit a sequel – which is scheduled to release next year – is proof enough that the film managed to strike a chord with the audience.

However, the film's lead star Charlie Hunnam believes that the movie could have turned out better had there been more focus on the story and character than the visual effects.

During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the King Arthur actor said, "When it becomes very technical, those technical aspects create a rigidity to the process. Then all of the sudden, you have to find where your little place to fit into that process is, as opposed to the whole thing being about you…

"I think world creation and monster creation and all of that stuff is exciting as a secondary element of storytelling. When it becomes more important than storytelling, I get very nervous, and you sort of loose me a little bit.

"Although we tried very hard on Pacific Rim to marry those two elements, I do feel like ultimately it got weighed heavier on the side of spectacle than storytelling. Not to say I wasn't proud of the film. I really liked it, and I felt like it delivered exactly what it was supposed to. But I do feel like we could have maybe plumbed the depths of the character and the storytelling a little bit more."

It remains to be seen if Hunnam's analysis is taken into consideration for Pacific Rim 2.

In an interview with Collider last year, director Guillermo del Toro talked about setting the stage for Pacific Rim 2, stating: "It's a few years after the first one. It's not an immediate follow-up. It is the world having been freed of Kaiju, what happens to the world after – what happens to the Jaeger technology once the Kaiju are not a threat. It's quite a jump."

Pacific Rim 2 is scheduled to hit theatres 4 August, 2017.