Today’s quick review: Pacific Rim: Uprising. Ten years after his father helped save the world from the monstrous Kaiju, Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) has abandoned his legacy in favor of a life of petty crime. After a brush with the law, Jake reluctantly agrees to train a new generation of cadets to pilot Jaegers, the enormous robots used to fight off the Kaiju. But the training program faces obsolescence with the advent of new, remote-controlled drones.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is a sci-fi action movie that pits giant robots against building-sized monsters. Pacific Rim: Uprising revisits the world of Pacific Rim ten years on. The Kaiju threat has subsided, the Jaeger program has blossomed, and humanity is beginning to recover from the calamitous invasion a decade prior. The film offers plenty of action and a few new additions to the universe, but it lacks the care and craftsmanship of the original.
Like its predecessor, Pacific Rim: Uprising’s greatest asset is its large-scale, CGI-fueled action. Uprising introduces a host of innovations, including new weapons for the Jaegers, team-oriented combat, and a dangerous new foe in Obsidian Fury, a rogue Jaeger. The movie also opts for a brighter color palette than the original, with more daylight scenes and vividly colored robots. As such, Pacific Rim: Uprising is a fun watch for its spectacle alone.
These perks come with a significant cost. Everything from the atmosphere to the cast to the fight choreography feels less substantial than the original. Where the characters of the original were instantly memorable, the victories were hard-earned, and the world was built up piece by piece, Pacific Rim: Uprising simply paints by the numbers. The craftsmanship is adequate, but the payoff is much lower and the film leaves a lot of potential on the table.
The changes are substantial. At a superficial level, Uprising does a good job of recreating the look and feel of the first film. But the movie badly misses the direction of Guillermo del Toro, the writing of Travis Beacham, and the soundtrack of Ramin Djawadi. The camerawork is more dynamic but less weighty, the dialogue is less dramatic, and the movie as a whole is missing much of its swagger. Uprising coasts.
As for its story, Pacific Rim: Uprising is decent but not great. The sequel makes a credible attempt at building on the story of the original, and it does provide a few interesting twists to the usual robots-vs.-monsters formula. But its plot logic is loose, its build-up is sloppy, and it doesn’t take the time to develop its characters properly. The story clears the bar for an action movie, but it’s less compelling than the original from start to finish.
The cast is also a mixed bag. John Boyega makes for a fine protagonist in Jake Pentecost, although his character never properly develops from rogue to hero. Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) leads a class of teen pilots, but apart from Amara herself, the cadets are only given passing attention. Returning characters include Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), and Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day).
Overall, Pacific Rim: Uprising is a fun but flimsy popcorn watch that fans of the sci-fi genre will enjoy. Uprising misses an opportunity to take the concepts of the original film to the next level, but enough raw spectacle is left over to make for an entertaining watch. Just don’t go in expecting more than passable writing, acting, and direction, especially if you were a fan of the original.
6.1 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 7.0 for enjoyable action and a couple of good additions to the world, but without the magic of the original.