Jaeger Bomb???

Robots and Monsters!

I didn’t see the first Pacific Rim film in the theater. In fact, I had no interest in it at all until I picked up a cheap copy of it on DVD (not even Blu-ray!) on the Saturday after Black Friday a few years ago. I fell in love with the excess of the film. It was loud, trimmed in bright colors, and full of giant robots and monsters smashing into things and trying to destroy each other. Gipsy Danger became my new favorite giant robot and I wanted more….lots and lots more.

I had to wait five years, but I finally got more of what I wanted. John Boyega (Finn from the latest Star Wars trilogy) put on the Jaeger suit and along with Scott Eastwood (Clint Eastwood’s kid) and first-time feature director Steven S. DeKnight, gave myself and other fans like me a solid sequel. It wasn’t necessarily as good as the original, but it worked on plenty of levels.

Spoiler Free Review

If you’ve seen the first Pacific Rim film, directed by Guillermo del Toro (who produced the sequel), you know the core plot of this film (giant robots fighting giant monsters). At the end of the first movie, the breach was closed and all of humanity was saved by Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam), Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), and the sacrifice of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) and Chuck Hansen (Robert Kazinsky). Uprising takes place ten years later, where we find Jake Pentecost, son of Stacker, living a wild life with friends in the ruins of a beautiful beachfront mansion.

He gets by in the post-Kaiju war world by selling stolen and salvaged Jaeger parts to citizens that illegally make their own Jaegers. He finds himself in trouble with the law after he has a run-in with Amara Namani (newcomer Cailee Spaeny), a teen whiz that has built her own Jaeger named Scrapper. In order to avoid jail, the duo are sent to a Shatterdome in China by Jake’s stepsister, Mako Mori (the returning Rinko Kikuchi). Jake agrees to train cadets and Amara becomes a new recruit thanks to how she handled herself against a real Jaeger.

At the Shatterdome, we meet Jake’s former co-pilot and drift partner, Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood). Jake joins Lambert as a trainer of a young group of cadets that include former Disney Channel star Karan Brar (Jessie, Bunk’d) and a bunch of other youngsters that I didn’t recognize. We are also introduced to Liwen Shao (Jing Tian), head of the Shao Corporation, a company that has designed Jaeger drones to replace the piloted Jaegers of old. With Liwen is the returning Charlie Day as Dr. Newton Geiszler (the doctor that drifted with a Kaiju in the first film). His former research partner, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (the excellent Burn Gorman), the high strung doctor from the first film, also returns for the sequel, but he’s still with the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps.

Things start to get interesting when a rogue Jaeger attacks Gipsy Avenger in Sydney, Australia, where Mako is supposed to make a decision on whether or not to green light the drone program. An old enemy with a new plan is discovered, and the Precursors (those pesky aliens hiding under the Pacific Ocean that created the Kaiju to prepare Earth for their eventual take over) send their scheme into overdrive.

From here the story gets pretty familiar. Jaegers fight Kaiju for the planet. Buildings, automobiles, boats, and all sorts of other things are destroyed as the humans try to stop the Precursors from taking over the world. It’s a big, loud, fun extravaganza.

But is the film worthy of a cinematic screening?

Yes…..but not without reservations.

Pacific Rim Uprising works on many levels. For starters, the cast is stronger than it was in the first film. No disrespect to Charlie Hunnam, but I’ve never seen him as a leading man. He’s good enough for a solid supporting role (or at least as the co-lead to a giant robot), but I’ve always felt that he was severely lacking in the charisma department. I didn’t miss him in Uprising. John Boyega, on the other hand, has charisma in spades. He can deliver a serious performance when needed, but he thrives when it comes to comedy. In Uprising, he delivers a solid performance that actually helps lift the film out of a few dull moments.

Scott Eastwood does an excellent job as well. His no-nonsense delivery makes him believable as the leader of the young cadets. Speaking of the cadets, all of them did very good jobs with their limited roles. Spaeny traded shots with Boyega like an old pro, and I genuinely cared for the cadets as they faced off against the Kaiju.

Kikuchi has a small role in the film but she does an excellent job nonetheless. Charlie Day dials up the crazy in his second go round as Geiszler. Annoying as always, you just want somebody to slap him. Gorman gets more screen time in this sequel, and he eats up every scene. Jian Tian manages to keep the audience on their toes with her performance. I’d like to see her in more films soon.

The CGI in the film is vivid and bright, and I have to admit that it was nice to see the Jaegers and Kaiju take on one another during the daytime and even in the snow! In the first film they squared off almost exclusively in the rain and at night. The Kaiju look cool in this film and the Jaegers are cranked up a notch. There’s a nice nod to the heroes of the first film at one point as well.

Despite the solid cast, decent CGI, and excellent fighting sequences, there’s just something missing in this film. The music doesn’t seem to factor in as much as it did in the original film. Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi handled the first film’s score and while his main theme was kept for Uprising, composer Lorne Balfe did very little to add to the film’s musical legacy. It was sufficient, but nothing special.

The plot does attempt to add a couple of twists to differentiate itself from the first film, but it is ultimately just another big robot vs. big monsters flick. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and, in all honesty, it was exactly what I expected it to be. I just wish that a little more time was spent on the development of the plot. Despite having a run time of just over an hour and fifty minutes, the film felt rushed. When it was all said and done, I enjoyed the film, but didn’t fall in love with it as I did with the first film.

Should you go see it? If you’re a Jaeger or Kaiju fan then, yes, go see it. Being on the big screen definitely makes these already larger than life robots and monsters seem even larger. The story is fun even though it’s nothing new, and the cast does a very good job.

Pacific Rim Uprising adds nothing new to its genre, but it doesn’t take anything away from it, either. It’s a loud romp that’s full of noise and destruction, and if you go into the film expecting that, you’ll be pleased.

Thanks for reading this post. I’ll be heading out to CyPhaCon this weekend in Lake Charles, LA. If you’re in the neighborhood, track me down at the convention and say hello. I’ll be posting about my experience at the convention on either Sunday evening or Monday night. I plan on taking a lot of photos and hopefully snagging an interview or two with guests or attendees.