Pacific Rim: Uprising

Although I did enjoy this movie, and it was a joy to watch on the big screen, the overall tone, and mood are so different from the first. The difference between fight scenes at night vs broad daylight may not seem like a big deal, but for some reason it really stood out to me. It just feels like this one was more geared toward kids, and potentially selling action figures. I didn't hate it by any means, but it really lacked what made the first one so unique, and intriguing to me.

A sequel to a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters. What was expected? Bigger robots fighting bigger monsters. The same thing with little tweaks - as most sequels do. What we got?

A product. A film generated by an AI. I wasn't there, but I assume it went something like this. The first meeting of the creators of this movie follows.

Ok, Google, what do modern kids like?

1. Robots (Transformers) 2. Scary cool monsters 3. Robots fighting monsters 4. Robots fighting robots 5. Memes from 2009 (Trololo sing) really? + memes from 2017 (the salt). 6. Horribly executed kid rebel subplots (Divergent, The Maze Runner, The Hunger games whatever) 7. Action 8. Forced drama? 9. Bad jokes?

Ok, let's take The Independence Day Resurgence's basic plot and fail miserably at everything. Done.

In other words, there is nothing in this movie besides action scenes. The plot lives on its own, there are no characters, and even their substitutes are completely disconnected from the dead plot. Nothing they do matter, it just follows typical cliches until the end. It even gets confusing at some point, but then you see the light at the end of the tunnel. It rushes the ending knowing that by this point nobody cares.

All the dialogue is cringe-worthy. Most of the actors are just having fun knowing that there's no need to get invested into anything here. Sadly, Scott Eastwood's face is stuck in one emotion and is unable to display anything else.

CGI crews did a good job, I guess. Looks fine. There's even one creative action scene involving buildings. Other than that the action is generic, even IMAX can't make it feel better. Maybe it would've been more impressive but the overabundance of CGI city destruction in modern blockbusters seriously lowers the threshold for getting impressed by CGI.

I'd compare this to a long video game cut-scene, but modern games have more character development and creative visuals in their cut-scenes. For instance, pretty much all Blizzard cut-scenes are visual masterpieces.

Final verdict: not entertaining on the big screen and a total waste of time for home viewing.

Of course, adults are incompetent at doing anything to save the world, so the tweens must do it alone. Heard this plot line before? A thousand times? Of course you have. It's not any better this time.

You're not missing anything of substance by skipping this one. Just stick to the original and stay happy.

It does not matter who your parents are, where you came from, who believed in you and who didn't. We are a family now, and we are earth's last defense.

What amazed me the most was the fact that I couldn't remember much of "Pacific Rim", even though I thought it was an original-looking film years ago. No worries. Little by little everything is explained again in such a way that I partially knew it again. And even though "Pacific Rim" wasn't high-quality cinema and simply a very expensive monster film with superb looking computer-generated images, the film impressed me at the time. "Pacific Rim" was brainless amusement with a high entertainment value. This sequel is simply a duplicate with other main characters in identical Jaegers. But it's so irritating and annoying mostly. I was hoping this time the Kaiju's took control and destroyed planet earth. That way we don't need to be afraid of a possible sequel in the future.

Since the design and subject are identical to that of the initial film, one could say that it's thanks to Guillermo Del Toro the first film was kind of a success. But that's a bit simplistic to state, in my opinion. I rather think there are several factors that ensure that you can't really call this a successful film. This time the entire Jaeger program shifts from a mature world to that of teenagers. We end up in a cadet school where young people are trained to become Jaeger pilots. A bit like in "Ender's game" but now it's not in space. And of course, there's one of the cadets who can't stand the newcomer Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) and believes she doesn't belong there. And who will be the hero in the end? Yep, not hard to guess. Anyway, it all feels a bit like a kindergarten. The Goonies in giant robots who save the world. Haven't we seen that before?

Also, the acting wasn't something to get enthusiastic about. Cailee Spaeny was acceptable with her youthful enthusiasm and rebellious behavior. John Boyega sometimes played the indifferent Jake with reluctance. Scott Eastwood was again suitable for the character Nate. And not only because of that creepy resemblance to his famous father. But the acting by Burn Gorman, Charlie Day and Tian Jing was at times simply bad. Bad enough to make me squirm.

Only the graphical part remains. Just like the 2013 film, it's a visual spectacle. And just like the acting, there are also ups-and-downs here. It's fun to see huge robots and enormous monsters smashing into one another. But to be honest, it's the same old thing as in the previous movie. And the final battle in a Japanese city close to "Mount Fuji" just looked ugly. It wasn't as if this clash of the titans took place in between blocks of flats made from cardboard. Just like in those ancient Godzilla films. But it's a close call. The duel on the ice, on the other hand, looked extremely great. A computer-graphic masterpiece.

Do you like to watch huge robots and by extraterrestrial created monsters battle each other? Then I guess this film is right up your alley. Have you seen "Pacific Rim" years ago? Then you can safely skip this one because you won't be seeing something really new here. To be honest, I sometimes had the feeling that I was watching a modern version of the Power Rangers. Only the creatures who emerged from another dimension resembled those that the Power Rangers fought against a long time ago. Ridiculously long time ago.

I'm not sure there's too many people out there who would call Guillermo Del Toro's 2013 robot/monster infused popcorn event Pacific Rim a classic of any sort but the eye-candy clad and seriously entertaining experience looks like a genuine masterpiece when placed alongside this charmless and trite sequel.

Somehow turning the prospect of giant robots and oversized monsters going at each other in a battle of life and death into an utterly boring and tiresome exercise, Pacific Rim: Uprising is the early death knell to a series that should've been a brand name that became the perfect excuse to turn your brain off and enjoy some big screen spectacle that is home to cheesy one liners, over the top CGI infused carnage and some A-listers hamming it up for good measure.

Taking over directing duties from Del Toro, debut feature film director Steven S. DeKnight brings none of the child like charm or enthusiasm the Mexican auteur brought to the table with his entry as we instead get a lame and tame tale of Idris Elba's Stacker Pentecosts' child Jake (played by a struggling John Boyega) turn from troublemaker to Jager pilot, as the world finds itself once more under threat from the dreaded Kaiju monsters.

The first Pacific Rim had a similarly dumb plot and characters that were more like walking caricatures but there was a sense that everyone involved was having a great time and despite better judgements, you as an audience member did to.

That's completely lost here, there's little fun to be had with the bland and uninteresting action scenes, the main cast are all completely forgettable, while even returning cast members such as Charlie Day's Dr. Newton Geiszler and Burn Gorman's Hermann Gottlieb are more of a tacked on accessory, with Day in particular getting an embarrassing character development that is both lame and totally misguided.

With a pulse-free plot line and thrill-free action there was little chance Uprising ever had at succeeding and there's little mystery as to why this unwanted sequel failed to capture the dollars at the box-office, guaranteeing the Pacific Rim brand is now dead in the water.

Final Say -

Not even the most hardcore of Pacific Rim fans will find much to enjoy in Uprising, an utterly forgettable and disposable new entry into the wannabe franchise that somehow manages to turn it's over the top foundations into a bland, charm-free and tiresome event.

1 child mechanic out of 5