Review of Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) by Leon B — 21 Aug 2018

Pacific Rim: Uprising.

(2018).

Plot:

John Boyega is the rebellious Jake Pentecost, a once-promising Jaeger pilot whose legendary father gave his life to secure humanity's victory against the monstrous "Kaiju". Now an even more fearsome alien threat has been unleashed on the world and Jake is called back into action by his former co-pilot, Lambert (Scott Eastwood), and a 15-year-old Jaeger hacker, Amara (Cailee Spaeny). Rising up to become the most powerful defence force to ever walk the earth, they will set course for a spectacular all-new adventure on a towering scale.

Review:

I wasn't that impressed with the first movie in this franchise, so I didn't jump out of my seat when I heard they were making a sequel. I was impressed with the CGI but the storyline, and the annoying characters, really let the movie down. The technical jargon also got on my nerves after a while, and the battle scenes looked a right mess in places but the attention to detail was amazing. Anyway, the movie is set in 2035, ten years after the Battle of the Breach, and former Jaeger pilot, Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), makes a living by stealing and selling Jaeger parts on the black market in Los Angeles. After tracking part of a disabled Jaeger power core in a secret workshop of a 15-year-old Jaeger enthusiast, Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny), both are arrested by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps after battling to escape in their single-pilot Jaeger, Scrapper. Jake's adopted sister and PPDC Secretary-General, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), gives Jake a choice between prison or returning to PPDC as an instructor, with Amara as his recruit. Jake decides to train the recruits at a Shatterdome in China, alongside his former co-pilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood). While Mako is delivering her final assessment about a new set of drones, her helicopter is shot down by a rogue Jaeger, Obsidian Fury, which immediately kills her before she can send her report. Her death prompts the PPDC council to authorise the drone program and order their immediate deployment. Just before Mako died, she transmitted the location of a defunct Jaeger production facility in Siberia, so Jake and Nate travel there in their own Jaeger, were they meet up with Obsidian Fury, who destroys the facility before his death. After examining his body, they realise that he was controlled by a Kaiju's secondary brain, which testing shows was grown on earth. When the drones reach their respective locations, they are taken over by cloned Kaiju brains and simultaneously attack Shatterdomes worldwide, inflicting heavy casualties on PPDC forces and incapacitating almost all Jaegers. Herman Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) seeks out Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), for help, only to discover that Geiszler is the mastermind behind the attack. His mind has been taken over by the Precursors, the alien race who created the Kaiju. Seeking to destroy the world for the Precursors, Geiszler, now their emissary, commands the Kaiju-Jaeger hybrids to open new breaches all over the world. Meanwhile, Jake and his team realise that the Precursors goal is to activate the Ring of Fire by detonating Mount Fuji with the Kaiju's chemically reactive blood, spreading toxic gas into the atmosphere and wiping out all life on Earth while terraforming the planet for Precursor colonisation. Of Course! After a heavy battle between the Jaegers and the Kaiju, Geiszler merges his Kaiju into a Mega-Kaiju using robotic parasites, that quickly overpower the Jaegers. With only one of the Jaegers left to save the planet, and most of the cadets either dead or harmed from the wreckage, the team try to work out how to take down the Kaiju. After Nate gets badly damaged, Jake and Amara pilot the last Jaeger, and they weld a rocket to its right hand, which sends them into the atmosphere, free-falling back to Earth, colliding into the Mega-Kaiju, which finally kills him. Before they make impact, Jack and Amara survive by ejecting out of the Jaeger in an escape pod. Geiszler tries to escape, once he sees that his plan has failed but Nate manages to catch and lock him up. Can someone please tell me why these directors have to over complicate such a simple concept? I found myself falling asleep once they started to mention all of these different sets of droids, and when the various organisations came into play, I just lost interest. Boyega's comedic acting style saved the film but the corny script and overdramatic soundtrack contributed to the movie being a terrible sequel. On the plus side, it did look good, in terms of the robots and the huge sets but it wasn't enough to save the film. With no form of character building with the crew and no outcome after saving the world, it really was a poor watch in my eyes. Disappointing!

Round-Up:

This movie was written and directed by Steven S. DeKnight, who was lucky to get such a big budget to make this movie because he has never directed a film before. He previously directed episodes for Angel, Smallville, Dollhouse, Spartacus and Daredevil but it is directional debut, I honestly think that he could have done better. A lot of the teenage cast was annoying, so I wasn't that bothered if they lived or not, and Charlie Day's constant blabbering got on my nerves. With no movies in the pipeline, especially after this bad sequel, Steven has to be grateful that this movie made a profit, even though the critics weren't that impressed. If they decide to make a 3rd movie, they really need to think about spending some of the budget on some decent actors, and try and give the cast a back story, so when they die, it really does mean something.

Budget: $150million.

Worldwide Gross: $291million.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi.

Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Burn Gorman, Charlie Day, Jin Zhang, Adria Arjona, Rinko Kikuchi, Karan Brar, Wesley Wong and Ivanna Sakhno. 4/10.