Film Review: Pacific Rim Uprising (2018)

The apocalypse is still cancelled

Pacific Rim Uprising (12A)

Starring: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman

Director: Steven S. DeKnight

The Plot: It's been ten years since the Kaiju were defeated and humanity has begun to rebuild. Jake Pentecost (Boyega), son of Stacker Pentecost, is a former Jaeger pilot who now lives a life as a smuggler and thief amongst the ruins of Miami. After encountering teenage tech genius Amara Namani (Spaeny), the two are caught and Jake receives an offer from his adoptive sister Mako: re-enlist in the Jaeger corps and help to train its new recruits (including Amara), or go to prison. Jake reluctantly chooses the corps, where he faces not only his father's legacy but his old rival Lambert (Eastwood), and finds himself forced into action when a rogue Jaeger begins attacking. However, it quickly becomes clear that the Kaiju are set to return - and a human being is responsible . . .

Check out the trailer here.

Review: I'm shamelessly a huge fan of the original Pacific Rim, which arrived back in 2013. It was a big, cheesy blockbuster that made no apologies about what it was - big robots fighting big monsters - but more importantly it had a spark of magic to it due to the involvement of Guillermo del Toro - you know, the guy who just won the Best Director Oscar for The Shape of Water. GDT directed and co-wrote the original Pacific Rim, and his passion and enthusiasm for the subject matter shone through. It was still a big silly blockbuster, and obviously not to everyones taste, but I loved it.

Enter Pacific Rim: Uprising, the sequel everyone knew would happen due to the success of the first film. Does it live up to the original? Unsurprisingly, no. We have a (mostly) new cast, a new director and new writers, and it shows - that spark of magic from the first film is sadly missing here, and while GDT has a producer credit, I seriously doubt he had much input on the final result. While the film will still appeal to its target audiences of massive nerds (that's me!) and young kids, it fails to live up to its origins.

While this is another big, silly blockbuster about humans inside giant mecha-suits fighting giant monsters, it has some real problems with the script. I know that it sounds a bit stupid to say that, as this clearly isn't the type of film that you come to for the finer qualities of the writing and the story, but even a film like this one needs a solid base to support the big, crunching action of the battle sequences. Sadly, you can see plot points coming from a mile away, meaning that nothing is a surprise, and it's also saddled with what I call "the sequel problem" as characters frequently remind new audiences of what went on in the first film through some terribly forced dialogue. The plot also feels incredibly rushed, despite the film's close to two hour run time, and because of this there's very little character development. Jake is the prime example here, our hero character who spends the vast majority of the film wanting nothing to do with the corps and counting down the days until he can leave, only to suddenly step up and become its leader during the final climactic battle with little to explain his change of character. Other plot threads suffer through lack of attention as well, particularly Jake's relationship with Amara (who's arguably the second lead of the film) where we get the hints of a brother-sister bond forming, but not enough time devoted to it. There are other issues as well, for example the group of cadets that Amara joins are about as stereotypical as you can get, and there's no mention at all of Raleigh Beckett, our hero from the first film who was played by Charlie Hunnam. That's particularly odd given that the character survived and there were hints of a romance between him and Mako (who does return here, once again played by Rinko Kikuchi). He doesn't appear inside a memorial room that Jake enters, displaying fallen heroes from the first film, so fans of the original will be left wondering what became of him. As for Mako herself, it would have been nice to have seen some explanation of how the character had progressed to the high-ranking officer that she is now, but again the film has no time for that.

What everyone has really come to see are the action sequences. There are only three, if you don't count the film's opening sequence where Jake and Amara are chased in her homemade Jaeger called Scrapper, and of those three the Kaiju only show up for the final battle. This is disappointing, as the Jaeger-on-Jaeger action of the first two scenes, while hard-hitting, aren't what I'm here for. The final battle, however, hits the nail right on the head as the four remaining Jaegers, led by Jake inside the brilliantly-named Gypsy Avenger, fight three enormous Kaiju in Tokyo in what is an orgy of destruction. Some of the CGI here works better than others, but it's an exciting battle that sees the city laid to waste and leads to the greatest Superman punch from orbit that you've ever seen a fifty-storey high robot perform. If only all of the fights in the film could have been like this one, it would have been far more exciting. There's a fair bit of humour to be found though, which helps make up for it: one of the Jaegers performs an anime-style landing, one flips a Kaiju the double bird, there's an appearance of the "Trololololol" guy, and we see a Gundam statue as well.

Now, again, performances aren't exactly an audiences priority for a film like this, and in Pacific Rim: Uprising that's a good thing. Boyega is the best thing here by far - he's a fantastic actor and his natural charisma is enough to carry the story along, despite the rushed nature of the film not allowing much character development for Jake, as I mentioned earlier. He does the best he can with what he's given here, and is suitably commanding when his character steps up and gives a motivational speech to the cadets. I was also impressed with Cailee Spaeny as Amara, who does well with a back story that's a carbon copy of Mako's from the original (her family were wiped out by Kaiju right in front of her). She has good chemistry with Boyega, and while you can see their shared plot line coming a mile away (spoiler alert, they have the necessary link required to pilot Gypsy Avenger to success at the end) it still works well. The rest of the cast don't fare very well though: Scott Eastwood is Scott Eastwood - nothing more needs to be said there - and both Burn Gorman and Charlie Day chew the scenery to the point that there's almost nothing left.

So overall then? Disappointment. Even for a huge geek and fan of the original like myself, this film isn't able to capture the magic of the first one and is let down by a rushed plot and lack of Jaeger-on-Kaiju action. While the final battle is exciting, it isn't enough to make up for the rest.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars (3 out of 5 if you're the target audience and can forgive its flaws)
A disappointing sequel that, without the guiding hand of Guillermo del Toro, fails to capture the spark that elevated the original beyond its cheesy blockbuster roots. John Boyega is a charismatic lead and the final battle is exciting, but this isn't enough to make up for a rushed, obvious plot that prevents character development and and has a distinct lack of Kaiju action. If you're in the target audience and can forgive the flaw there's still an exciting film to be found, but for most people there won't be. A shame.