Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Directed by Steven S. DeKnight
It has been ten years since The Battle of the Breach and the oceans are still, but restless. Vindicated by the victory at the Breach, the Jaeger program has evolved into the most powerful global defense force in human history. The PPDC now calls upon the best and brightest to rise up and become the next generation of heroes when the Kaiju threat returns.
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5 films that influenced Pacific Rim: Uprising
What critics say influenced Pacific Rim: Uprising
That particular qualifier, perhaps inspired by other more humanity-conscious themes in recent DC and Marvel films such as 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Captain America: Civil War," is just one eye-rolling moment in a film that spreads a heavy layer of action over some pretty obvious plot holes.
Even the first movie, directed by Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro ("The Shape of Water"), was little more than a War of the Godzillas vs. the Transformers.
Even if it hadn’t earned him dual Oscars, it’s easy to imagine why “The Shape of Water” struck Guillermo del Toro as a more enticing project than a sequel to “Pacific Rim.” Thanks to del Toro’s peerless gift for breathing life into slimy organisms and high-tech gadgetry, the rock-’em-sock-’em 2013 summer tentpole got the job done, but felt like the director’s least personal film to date.
Taken seriously or not, the statement is one difficult to debate, but really, this is another entry in the Pacific Rim franchise, something fans of the first have been clamoring for even as contracts between corporations got in the way, (prompting director Guillermo del Toro to frustratingly say screw it and go on to win Oscars for last year’s spellbinding masterpiece The Shape of Water), meaning that this bombastic spectacle will be gladly embraced with open arms.
Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, Guillermo del Toro follows up his well-deserved Oscar winner “The Shape of Water” by acting as one of the producers of this laughable sequel to his bloated 2013 “Power Rangers”-meets-“Transformers” ripoff, “Pacific Rim.”
So just how dull is the follow-up to 2013’s robots-fighting-monsters mayhem, which replaces “The Shape of Water” Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro in the director’s chair with Steven S. DeKnight, who created the “Spartacus” TV series and more recently served as a consultant on a web series called “Travel Boobs”?
Pacific Rim: Uprising does a couple of things better than its predecessor: Boyega is a far more charismatic lead than Hunnam could ever hope to be (to be fair, Hunnam has been very good in smaller films like The Lost City of Z, but he’s a blank in would-be tentpoles like Pacific Rim or King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) and brings all his charm and swagger to bear here.
There's also a spotlight on Amara (Cailee Spaeny), a teenage Jaeger fangirl who grew up alone and winds up in an Ender's Game-esque boot camp where Jake and his old friend Nate (Scott Eastwood) train young recruits to pilot Jaegers in case Earth needs defending again -- which of course it will.
Lorne Balfe’s score is derivative of Daft Punk’s music for Tron: Legacy , and the persistent cutting to Amara and her trials at the PPDC has the annoying feel of a bad young-adult movie like Ender’s Game.
When Jake is caught doing no good, he is sent back to the squad to help train a young, Ender’s Game–esque next gen of Earth defenders.
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Things happen very slowly as characters learn to trust one another, allowing a lackluster villain the time he needs to implement the exact same plan that didn't work in Iron Man 2.