Pacific Rim Uprising Review

In a world where it seems like every new movie is either a remake, a weak adaption of some great material, or the growing oversaturation of superhero films (great as the Marvel ones have been recent), original entities like Pacific Rim are like a breath of fresh air. The original came in seemingly out of nowhere from the creative mind of Guillermo Del Toro and blew our minds. This time around though, it was directed by Steven S. DeKnight. Set ten years after the original film, the world is still trying to rebuild itself after the chaos from the Kaiju wars.

That’s where we meet our new protagonist Jake Pentecost (played by John Boyega), the son of Stacker Pentecost. Instead of following in his father’s footsteps, he’s decided to become a scavenger, selling Jaeger parts on the black market. A job doesn’t go so well one, and he and another wind up getting captured. Instead of going to jail, however, they’re put to work with the PPDC, Jake taking back his old position, and now training the new recruits. One day, a rogue Jaeger shows up and starts terrorizing the city. Things don’t go so well, tragedies occur, and now it’s up to the new generation of Jaegar pilots to take care of the big new threat.

Right off the bat, you can easily feel the difference in direction. While the first movie felt like a sci-fi wartime drama, this one brings in the jokes right off the bat. They’re well deserved, of course, no need to get dark so soon. With the world going through times of peace, and the majority of the film even takes place during the day. However, the feeling doesn’t change much more for the flick. This is by no means a critique though, because that’s not exactly what we went into the first movie for either. All we want is some giant robot action, and that we definitely get.

The overall story is good. A passing of the torches tale, however, it lacks the people the torches are being passed from. While I am sure that it‘s probably explained in a comic book prequel, it would’ve been nice to know whatever happened to Raleigh. Instead, he only gets one mention pretty early on. As for the visuals. It might just be me, but the CG doesn’t really look as good as the first movie. There were a good number of scenes where things just didn’t blend as well this time around. Although that might just be due to most of the action taking place during the day. There was also one heart-wrenching scene that took place that wasn’t sat on long enough, making the whole scene a bit forgettable.

Overall though this was a fun movie. Doesn‘t match the greatness of the original, but that’s just expected with sequels. If you like sci-fi, giant robots and/or monsters, and John Boyega, go see this film.