The characters in this movie are so bland and cookie-cutter that Rinko Kikuchi (as Mako Mori) seems Oscar-worthy. Not sure why John Boyega is as big of a deal as he is and Scott Eastwood looks like his Dad, so there's that. The group of cadets in this movie are sickeningly spunky and angst-y. Only ten-year olds could possibly be interested in them.
The story is dumb and even with all the ridiculous tech on display, I still refuse to believe the feisty teenage cadet (Amara) could have designed, much less assembled, her Jaeger "Scrapper". When Jake and Amara are reentering Earth's atmosphere inside of a red-hot Gypsy, why didn't they burn up? The front shield is busted out. The city destruction action loses all of its impact because the jaegars themselves destroy skyscrapers with reckless abandon. Something else lost is scale. The jaegars and kaiju are big but the shots of them are too tight. Pull the camera away from the city and show the beasts from a distance (like the shot of Surtur destroying Asgard in "Thor: Ragnarok").
The quality of the CGI effects were definitely better than most movies, and the jaegar designs are inspired. The kaiju creations were few and far between and were not the focus of the action as in Del Toro's original. I have to give an extra star for a twist that occurs with a main character that I didn't see coming.
I'm a big fan of giant monster movies, even though they are usually pretty bad. "Pacific Rim: Uprising" is better than the worst of the genre, but the choice to make it super kid-friendly has pretty much leveled the world Del Toro created.
Let's start with what I liked about Pacific Rim:Uprising:
- John Boyega was good, better than I was expecting honestly. Cailee Spaeny's acting was enjoyable too.
- The story, while nothing exceptional, was interesting enough. It had a nice twist that I thoroughly enjoyed.
- The CGI and VFX were definitely better than the first one. Less shaky-cam too.
Now for what I did not like:
- While I said above that I liked the story, I felt there was too much of it. The movie would probably be better off deleting about 30 minutes of the first half.
- Not enough Kaiju. While the JaegerVSJaeger battles were nice, they were not what I was looking for in this movie.
- The young pilots didn't add much for me. I felt they gave the movie a kind of Ender's Game vibe, which it did not need.
- The overall artistic style lost the dark and rainy aesthetic that I really loved about the first one.
- Scott Eastwood was not good. Super generic character.
- The Jaegers (and the Kaijus, to a lesser extent) lost the weight they had in the first movie. They felt so light, punches didn't have the same impact.
Overall, it's definitely an enjoyable movie, provided you know what you are about to watch. It definitely targeted a younger audience than the first installment. As a result it felt more like "Transformers: Now with some Kaijus" to me, losing the appeal that made Pacific Rim such an enjoyable movie.
If there will be a third movie like they hinted at the end, please put Guillermo DelToro back on the director's seat and give him carte blanche.
The small Jaeger rolling away like a ball was so dumb
I don't even want to write anything. This movie makes me angry. Even with the mind-set going in that this is cheesy non-sense meant to please the brain-dead movie-going public, it fails to generate any sense that it understands what it wants to be and it's responsibility to respect it's predecessor. Call me exaggerating, but Pacific Rim: Uprising is a nightmare of a film, it's the last thing any fan should want of a property: Taking everything great a franchise has established, strip it down it's bare assets, then trying to sell it to dumb people. I've already said the first Pacific Rim wasn't a brilliant piece of cinema, but a lot of love went into crafting it's visuals and universe. Del Toro had a great eye for practical effects, lighting, digital composites, etc. I'm sorry Steven S. DeKnight, but he murders the franchise in every possible category: The writing is film school amateurish, the effects are below-average (lower than Transformers quality), the music is forgettable, and the universe has been shrunken down to a couple people, just like what The Last Jedi did for Star Wars. You had this mature and bad-ass world of Jaegar meets Kaiju action and you squandered it into the embarrassing cringe-inducing children's movie domain. I don't know how much hand John Boyega had in the creative process, but you can smell the cheapening all over the product. Everyone's picked apart the Jaegars moving too fast and the outfits not appearing as technically impressive, but down to the core, the writing, it's ruined. You thought Independence Day: Resurgence had lazy writing? Wait until you hear classic lines in Uprising that just reference how much better the writing was in the last movie. Want to write a great speech before the final battle? That takes too much effort. Just mention how great Idris Elba's "cancelling the apocalypse" speech was. They do this constantly in the movie, chucking, not even just random subtle call-backs, but full pieces of dialogue mentioning events in the last one. If you're not even going to bother writing your story better than garbage like Ender's Game and every other "youth training in military to stop evil force" movie, please don't insult the original by persistently referencing how much better it was. The action isn't even exciting. The physics and extremely out-of-place uses of slow-motion hinder any kind of tension or thrills. The finale in Tokyo is among one of the most underwhelming and confusing messes of editing ever. Resurgence was easy to follow at least, because it was set in the barren desert. How is it that a sequence at night in the rain, from the first movie, is easier to follow than one in daylight? And the movie just ends after they defeat the "final boss" Kaiju. No extra words to bring the characters' arcs to a close, you know, like a resolution should. It just goes from the characters getting out of their pod, having an out-of-place snowball fight, and the end credits. I almost couldn't believe it was over then. There was a brief mid-credits scene that poorly set-up future sequels that thankfully won't ever happen. It just dumbfounds me the entire cast went about putting this disaster together without one person going, "You know, shouldn't we at least get something right from the original movie?" Long-gone are the days of cool neon-aesthetic duel-outs with robots smashing ships into on another. We have the most bare-bones bullshit that's parading around as a sequel to a passion project of epic proportions. It's no wonder Del Toro isn't advertising this movie on Twitter. There's a part in the movie where they play the "Trololol" song as the Jaegars are flying away to fight. It was literally trolling it's audience.
It has been a few hours since I saw this movie, and now I am having to rethink a lot of it. I walked out of the movie happy, as I think most people would, but I do have a couple of grievances. The first movie celebrated the how international the Pan Pacific Defence Corps was, and I agree that this movie seemed to do the same (and without the terrible Australian accents!). The movie incorporated a lot of new and interesting characters, that still seemed to display a kind of diversity. There were way more female characters than the first movie!
However, I am a little disappointed with how they tied the movies together. I understand that they want it to be a little like a standalone, but referring to characters by name occasionally without telling us what happened to them really gets me? You keep mentioning Raleigh Beckett, but what happened to him? His picture isn't on the wall, he doesn't seem to be in any position at the Shatterdome? Okay, maybe he is at a different Shatterdome... but couldn't they throw that in?
Next, what happened to Herc Hansen? Maybe they realised that Max Martini shouldn't be doing an Aussie accent and decided not to get him in? I think a good head canon would perhaps be that he fell into a pool of alcoholism when he didn't need to be strong for his son any more. (Let's be real, I was hoping there would be a surprise and Chuck would be alive! Stacker could pilot a jaeger alone! Why didn't he save Chuck????)
And Mako! They killed off Mako! A disaster!
I kind of wish that they had developed Jake and Amara a little more (they just left that scene in the simulator??? They could have RAN with that?) Even Jake and Lambert's relationship deserved a little more love. I just feel like the characters developed a little more in the first movie than in this movie... (hear me about Hermann & Newt's relationship, Raleigh & Chuck's relationship, Chuck & Mako's relationship, Mako & Stacker's relationship. Hell even a bit of Herc & Chuck and Herc & Stacker in there... But this movie did have good characters!
Perhaps this movie had just lost a lot of the Guillermo Del Toro love... which, I think, is the only reason that Pacific Rim got a sequel. The detail that was put into the original production, simply because Del Toro wanted it to be lifelike and seem real (friendly reminder that they used an actual whole conn-pod prop in the original movie, I don't know about this one)
Also, I agree with a previous comment that mentions that this movie just didn't feel as high stakes as the original. Everything came and went so quickly, and I do understand that there was all that build up to introduce the characters etc, but remember the first movie (with a very similar story line, character wise) where we could have a washed up pilot come back and join with all the others who hate him at first, but then learn to love him and save the world together, befriending an orphan and piloting with her in the process? Same story, but a whole chunk of this movie was taken up with just getting to this part, whereas the original built up the action, and felt like it was really the only/last chance to stop the kaiju. In Uprising, it was the First.
But besides all that junk, I still really enjoyed it! I'll just be taking my score from a 10 to an 8, because this movie doesn't deserve to be held on the same pedestal as the first. Hope everyone else enjoyed it (and I'll miss you Del Toro!)
Where the first Pacific Rim couldn't wait to get to the goods, whiplashing the audience into their first monster-vs-robot fight in the first ten minutes, this one seems reluctant to get there at all. A long majority of the film is spent outside the giant mechs, doting over a slew of thin, bland, mostly-new focal figures instead.
It seems frightened to cut loose, withholding the payout for fear it can't measure up. Those worries were well-founded. Once the monster threat finally rears its head and the city block-sized laser swords start flying, Uprising is a pale impersonation. Gone are the unique, individualized robotic designs of the previous film, instead replaced by a standardized set of forms that would easily run together in action scenes without the helpfully colorful paint jobs.
Well-founded rules and restrictions for the universe, an important set of boundaries established and obeyed in the first film, are hand-waved away as soon as it's convenient to do so. What few returning characters remain are reduced to simple archetypes, emotionlessly going through the motions alongside the new cast members. It isn't even all that much fun to watch, despite all the flashing lights, rumbling buildings and well-trodden action movie conventions.
A pointless sequel that does nothing new and actively resists many aspects of the original - why bother at all?
Nothing special. The Jaeger look cool, and their weapons are ridiculous enough that you can think it's a parody. You barely see the Kaijus. Third rate scenario, but you gotta admit CGI are pretty good looking.
Boyega's main character is a little less transparent than the first one's. The kid building her own Jaeger was something interesting but it didn't turn into anything special. The reveal of the bad huy is the only small point of interest in the scenario. Most of the rest is a copy of an Evangelion episode.
The rogue Jaeger, Obsidian Fury, is really cool though, and it's the main interest of the movie. The fight with it are impressive. Though after defeating it they don't seem to care anymore about their initial goal, did they even try to see what was in the factory ?
Although, there's been 10 years since the first one. They had a lot of data on numerous Kaijus attacks, and nobody ever figured one they were all going in a straight line ? Nobody ever put all Kaijus attacks on one map ??
The fights with Kaijus are ridiculous. They could easily fight outside the cities, specially after they know that the Kaiju does not aim to destroy the city, it just want to walk through it, but not only do they do it in the midst of buildings, the heroes also just happily run their blades trough the buildings or take ten of them down in a row to throw them on the Kaiju, why all this pointless destruction ? Also there are people in there, come on !
Not even talking about the part that they just put children that never really had any fighting experience in command of the most destructive weapons ever invented by mankind and just send them merilly on their way to battle in the city.
And the whole final attack on the Kaiju is way way way too stupid. Well first it looks like it takes 20 minutes to get over the city. Then they stop the fight, just get up, and it is already what, a hundred kilometers away ? There's not even be 2 minutes since they stopped fighting. Then it just resumes normal speed so that they can plan an attack. And what attack, even perfectly planned, accounting to the distance, Kaiju direction and speed, atmospheric conditions, it would be difficult, but it's jsut (badly) hand (un)controlled, breaks in the middle, and still manages to hit ?
In the end, it seems to take itself more seriously than the first one, and fails, by a lot.
Review by mookieBlockedParent2018-03-23T07:14:41Z
I am a huge fan of the inventive yet simple first film. It is a guilty pleasure of a film that includes giant robots and monsters, but has enough development of characters that I have something to latch onto. It also helps that Del Toro's imagination helps build not only some fantastic beasts, but a great world to have the action focus on.
This sequel, while almost stand alone, doesn't have as much in any of those departments. The characters are pretty flat. The relationships between the characters are barely developed (like between Pentecost and Lambert, or Pentecost and Amara). The film lacks any heart or soul to it. Yes, there is lots of action, lots of Jaegers fighting Kaiju, but it almost feels rote. While the fight scenes in the original film are masked in night and rain, the fight scenes in Uprising take place mostly in the bright day light. I figured that would make for something exciting, but the action mostly falls flat. Maybe, it's because there aren't any memorable touches in the fight scenes like the original such as the Newton's Cradle or the funny items falling out of cargo containers used as weapons.
Even with this said, I did enjoy the film for what it is, a film that aims high, but falls quite short of its original. The film is carried by John Boyega whose charisma makes the film very watchable. The casting of newcomer Cailee Spaeney was also great, she has a future ahead of her. I didn't much care for Scott Eastwood who doesn't emote anything other than "stern" or "annoyed".
The story for the film was pretty thin, except for the twist which sets off the big fight in the third act. I actually thought the twist of flipping Newt to be the bad guy was brilliant since Newt is the last guy I would think could be a bad guy.
I do wonder what happened to some of the other characters that survived the original film. What happened to Raleigh Becket? How come he's not with Mako Mori who shows up in this film? How come Herc Hansen is not leading the Shatterdome? And where in the hell is Hannibal Chau? The script doesn't bother to fill us in on these interesting characters from the first film.
The score was taken over by Lorne Balfe and was fairly forgettable until he uses Ramin Djawadi's original Pacific Rim theme in the third act.