Review of Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) by Charlie P — 29 Mar 2018

A decade has passed since the Kaiju were finally defeated by the massive "Jaeger" robots. Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the son of the heroic Stacker Pentecost, lives life as an ex-pilot who sells Jaeder scrap for money. But when he and a young mechanic named Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) are both hired by former war hero Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) to partake in a new "Jaeger" training program, it isn't long before a rogue "Jaeger" starts a destructive series of events that will force Jake to decide whether he wants to live up to his fathers name or not...

One of the biggest surprise hits to have come out of the lackluster year of 2013 in terms of films, was Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim which was a widely entertaining tribute to Japanese "Kaiju" films such as the Godzilla films and Gamera while also mixing in elements from the likes of Mecha Shows such as Power Rangers and Voltron in it's concept of human-piloted giant robots fighting giant monsters. While not a big hit in America, the film's huge international takings especially from China and the positive reception from critics and fans alike, made Pacific Rim one of the best original science fiction films of the last decade and has brought new life into the Giant Monster sub-genre with new films for both Godzilla and King Kong in the years betwee also being big hits as well.

With Del Toro being absent from this sequel due to his commitments to the recent Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, the showrunner of the first season of Marvel's Netflix series Daredevil, Steven S. DeKnight does an impressive job in his feature film debut in recapturing the size and scope of the first film as the fight sequences between the new Jaegers and Kaiju still look as impressive as ever in terms of visuals and cinematography.

However, despite John Boyega's talents paying off from his Star Wars films, newcomer Caliee Spaeny's mechanic character being a great new role model for girls and the scene-stealing doctor duo of Newt (Charlie Day) and Hermann (Burn Gorman) getting the best lines again, Pacific Rim: Uprising suffers greatly from a rushed plot that ends too abruptly and having under-developed supporting characters. Despite the huge marketing campaign behind this film that has a heavy emphasis on promoting the new sleeker Jaeger designs, this creative new designs don't get enough screen-time to make them memorable in any way.

Another problem with this film is much like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, plot twists revolving around several returning characters could ruffle some fan's feathers and the notable absence of Charlie Hunman's character is never explained.

Overall, Pacific Rim: Uprising does lack a lot of what made the first film so great which may have been a result of the absence of Guillermo Del Toro's talents, But it does manage to be pure blockbuster fun that ironically comes closer to the spirit of what the likes of the Power Rangers and Transformers franchises were supposed to be, than the actual Power Rangers and Transformers films ever were.