Actually I'm going to speak up for Pacific Rim ... and a few other films, such as another non-sensical favorite of mine - Streets of Fire.
I don't look at films like these as being part of their supposed genre, even so far as to say Pacific Rim isn't an action-adventure-science-fiction film or Streets of Fire an action-romance. Both these films are very personal films for their directors. Hill wanted to do a rock and roll fable that had all the hallmarks of his favorite movies - rock and roll music, bar fights, motorcycle gangs, the dark horse heroes, kissing in the rain ... and it's so obvious that Pacific Rim is del Toro's celebration of one of his favorite genres - his love of the big robot-giant monster films. Of course they don't have rockets or sensible defenses - come on, its a Giant Robot film! It's GOT to have Giant Robots, complete with swords get pulled out of nowhere in a climatic battle! We all knew Godzilla was a guy in a rubber suit trashing cardboard Tokyos, but that was part of the fun! The novel Ready Player One was really silly - willy wonka of the virtual age - but boy did it feel good remembering those old video games.
Who cares if a ship's keel would crack in half if used as a club? It's just cool.
Films like these don't run on a high level of verisimilitude. They actually do run on the Rule of Cool. Streets of Fire, sit back, relax, settle deep into a couch and share Walter Hill's dream of what a fifty's rock and roll romance should be like ... share Del Toro's joy of big dumb but oh my god spectacular robots ... alien invasion in Julie Brown's LA? So its silly, but it's also lot of laughs.
So yes, if you go into a film like this looking for a high level of verisimilitude, of course you are going to walk away disgruntled. But then I might also say that it's your own fault
