I wanted to like Pacific Rim more

As much as I wanted to adore Pacific Rim, one thing has really been niggling in my mind all week. Not the complete disregard for physics, why many water-based combat systems weren't very water proof, why they continuously used the least effective weapons and saved the best ones as last resorts, or the many awkward close-frame facial expression of the male lead when broods moodily at the camera. [Spoilers below]

But that the film came so close to having a bad-ass female lead, who was as physically strong and mentally capable as her co-star with an equally fraught motivational back story (in which said Damsel must be rescued) and then--SURPRISE--she's a useful plot device through her relationship as a main character's daughter, her weak lady-brain's putting everyone in peril (AFTER the male lead's weakness triggered her violent emotional response to a violent emotional memory), and garnering the lead's feeble romantic interest, his valiant attempts to rescue her fate from her protective father so she could fulfill her dreams, and his fighting for her honor and later rescue her from a life-threatening situation as the clock ran out so he could save the day.

So close, and yet. . . . Not even close, right?

Gah, I just can't take the feminist goggles off, but trope after trope of damsel-rescuing is lazy fucking writing, yo.