Review of Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) by Halofever — 27 Mar 2018

Pacific Rim: Uprising is on the high side of mediocre. Granted, the first movie fell into the same category. The changes from the original are a mixed bag. Robots now fight in the day light instead of at night in a rain storm.

The pilots also bring out their best weapons from the start instead of the last 3rd of the movie. On the downside, there almost no reason to care about these characters. Our main hero is wishy-washy about whether he wants to fight giant monsters and his kid sidekick is only given a few minutes of screen time.

You might think kids would fall in love with this movie but today's kids are just as cynical as we are. At one point a giant robot is tossed by a giant monster through several buildings and onto the street.

Its giant fist slightly nudges a compact car, setting off the car alarm to humorous effect. My son says, "That always happens in movies." The movie also misses an opportunity for a Karate Kid, Last Star Fighter vibe.

You have a Hogwarts of teen characters and the movie could care less about them. I couldn't tell you any of their names. There was a time when all the CGI buildings falling and giant robot punching would have been enough to make this movie the top box office draw.

Remember Independence Day? The movie was terrible but it was the first movie to show us what CGI could do on a mass scale. Now we see this kind of voyeuristic destruction on TV shows. For a movie like this to raise above the rest, it need a story that matters and characters we can root for.

If the Pacific Rim folks make a 3rd movie, I hope they do better.