That fucking initial "suit-up" scene in the beginning with the score blaring and the Jaegar getting primed for battle had me so god damn juiced up!!! FUCKKKK. Such an insane intro which left me with the shit-eating grin I was hoping for.
After the groundwork for the backstory is set and it moves to current time, things basically went into "oh shit, people are not going to like this movie" mode. A lot of time spent getting into the details of drifting, character development...a lot of face time with fairly one-dimensional characters setting up the eventual climax. I personally loved this part, but it was where my wife fell asleep and basically forces the watcher to buy-in to everything that's unfolding. Visually, this part is still great, and there are cuts of humor that are great...but if you don't go into the movie expecting a bit of over-the-top characters and some cheese, you're going to WTF this thing into the garbage bin and you'll be tainted for the final act.
The fact act itself, I had a bit of an issue with being able to keep track of who was doing what in the underwater fight scene. The two Jaegars weren't visually distinct enough and the darkness of the environment wasn't helping. Also the Kaiju they were fighting weren't visually distinct enough during the action cuts to really know who was doing what on top of it. The fight itself was cool, but I admittedly got lost more than once which sucked.
The scientists I love, loved. "Come quickly! Newt made a neural bridge out of some garbage and drifted with one of them...". Fucking lost it. When the other dude came out of the drift with the baby Kaiju and somehow managed to vomit into a toilet in the middle of the street I lost it again. Also watching him awkwardly trying to lock hands with Newt but having no idea how these bro-shakes work was hilarious. "I can't tell you, it's classified. I want to tell you...it's pretty cool... OK I'm going to tell you!"
Wish they made the first Sword moment more epic, if I can even say that with a straight face. It happened and it was awesome, but I wanted the actual slashing off of the head to have some kind "loud white noise while the sword gets formed to pure silence and pausing to draw you into the moment" stuff going on before the swipe was made. Swording the water Kaiju in half was awesome.
...so yeah! I loved it a lot. I see it's flaws...I don't give a shit about them...I want to see it again... I know not everyone is going to like this and I truly do worry about it's Box Office.