Review: Pacific Rim: Uprising

Set ten years after the events of the first film, and John Boyega plays the estranged son of Idris Elba’s deceased character, who reluctantly joins the next stage in the fight against the alien kaiju. Boyega is accompanied by teenage amateur jaeger builder Cailee Spaeny, with the former assigned a training role and the latter one of the jaeger trainees. Scott Eastwood plays a former acquaintance/superior officer of Boyega’s who isn’t happy to see the perennial screw-up. Charlie Day returns as the cranky ADHD scientist who is now recruited by a potentially shady corporation experimenting with the kaiju and jaeger technology. He may also be screwing around with his own specimens off company time (Not all that much of a thinker, is this scientist apparently).

I actually think Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” was a better kaiju movie than both Gareth Edwards’ “Godzilla” and the Japanese film “Shin Godzilla”. So, when I heard a sequel was being made, I was excited. Unfortunately, this 2018 follow-up has been directed by Steven S. DeKnight (predominantly a TV writer-producer) and is completely flat, joyless, and uninvolving. It really shouldn’t be this hard to make a fun monsters vs. robots movie, but DeKnight and the screenwriters sure do seem to find every way to make it hard for themselves. The first film got the ration of humans, kaiju, and robots just about perfect. This one is like a “Transformers” movie crossed with “Chappie”: Too much robotics and boring-arse human characters, and not nearly enough kaiju action. The first film probably had some young fans, but this film feels like it has been directly geared towards youngsters only. It’s basically about young ‘Jaeger’ trainees for cryin’ out loud, like a crappy “Ender’s Game” (Yes, I quite liked that film).

The film definitely lacks del Toro’s Godzilla-loving, quirky humoured touch and filmmaker’s weird stylistic eye/skill. DeKnight is barely competent and the film is flat, as well as inviting “Transformers” comparisons via too much daytime robot-fighting. His deployment of distracting lens flares gave me the irrits too. John Boyega is charismatic and likeable, but his character is particularly poorly set-up and we never quite latch onto him as a lead protagonist. The film’s clunky leap forward in time from the events of the first film isn’t incoherent, but it’d be a lot better if Boyega’s character had been even slightly mentioned in the first film. Boyega’s the film’s shining light amongst the cast, though. Scott Eastwood has a lot of his dad’s looks and facial expressions…and none of his talent or charisma (And I’m not that much of fan of Clint as an actor, either). The obnoxious fan girl pilot kid stylings of Cailee Spaeny, who is completely amateurish and clear pandering to the younger set. Her every scene- sadly most of the film- was a source of annoyance for me. I don’t think I’ve found kiddie pandering this irritating since Ahsoka Tano referred to Anakin Skywalker as ‘Sky Guy’ in the abysmal cartoon Happy Meal “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”. The film also contains way too much Charlie Day. If you know who Charlie Day is, nothing else needs to be explained, except that his character arc here is far removed from anything Mr. Day is capable of convincingly conveying on screen.

After 40 (too) long minutes, some kaiju finally enter the picture…in a shared memory/training scene. Ugh. Is it interesting that kaiju are piloting jaegers in this film? Only half as interesting as the filmmakers think. Scripted by the director, with Emily Carmichael (mostly experienced in shorts), T.S. Nowlin (who unsurprisingly scribed the “Maze Runner” films), and Kira Snyder (a co-EP and occasional writer on TV’s confronting, infuriating, but addictive “The Handmaid’s Tale”), the entire plot is lousy and predictable. Well done, guys. You’ve ruined a potentially viable franchise. It’s only after 70 minutes (!) that we finally get a good look at some of the kaiju, and they do indeed look good. The jaeger vs. kaiju battles at the climax would’ve been fun had I not stopped caring by that point. For me, the best I can say is that it has been photographed more stably than the “Transformers” films from a camerawork point of view. Otherwise, this one’s for “Robotech” fans, only.

No, this crappy “Voltron” wannabe just won’t do. Why couldn’t they just give us robots, monsters, and Ron Perlman in equal measure for 90 minutes? Instead we get a kiddie “Top Gun” with way too many tedious characters, some monsters making a too late arrival, and no Ron Perlman at all. Dull and bland, and practically no fun. This was a major miscalculation, when all they had to do was stick to the formula that had already worked! Instead we get an assembly line McProduct.

Rating: C