There was a monstrous amount of undeniable glee to be had while watching 2013’s Pacific Rim, a film that played out like a big-budget re-enactment of a seven-year-old smashing his toys together. A procession of scenes featuring giant robots fighting giant creatures proved gloriously fun to behold, recklessly destructive and fantastically silly. But the rest of the film was hopelessly inert, the humans so staggeringly dull that I’d have been content to see them destroyed underneath a public park-sized slimy claw.
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Such B-movie mayhem proved a difficult sell for audiences. It underperformed stateside with just $101m in the bank, a problematic result given the $190m budget, but it was easily translatable overseas and a worldwide total of $411m (helped mainly by Chinese audiences) meant that a sequel was deemed a worthy pursuit. The second time around, director Guillermo del Toro has taken a step back with just a producer credit (he’s too busy winning Oscars to be involved in such frippery) and a retooled cast is in place, with John Boyega’s effortless charisma taking over from Charlie Hunnam’s total lack of it.
The Star Wars alumnus plays Jake, the son of Idris Elba’s deceased general from the first outing. He’s a burnout, having left his position in the Jaeger Academy (where plucky recruits train to control those giant robots) and instead makes his money by selling black market scraps left over from the war 10 years prior. But when he’s arrested yet again his sister (Rinko Kikuchi, who remains as unmemorable as she was in the original) steps in and forces him back into his old job, along with a scrappy orphan (newcomer Cailee Spaeny, whose upcoming filmography suggests she is going to be one of the year’s biggest breakouts) he’s picked up along the way. It’s good timing as, despite the world moving on from the terrifying events before, it looks like it might be about to happen again.
While the film undoubtedly picked up a much bigger audience on the smaller screen there’s still a much-needed “previously on Pacific Rim” opening montage that wisely plays to a new crowd who might have missed the first chapter. It’s followed by a zippy collection of scenes introducing Boyega’s character, who plays like a slightly less developed cocktail of Han Solo and the Star Trek reboot’s Kirk. There’s a hefty amount of exposition that follows, but it’s indicative of a jargon-heavy script that one has to acclimatize to. The process felt clunkier in Del Toro’s film, but there’s an easier flow this time around.
The film in general moves at a sleeker pace, with more of an actual plot to match the shiny visuals. It’s strange given that Del Toro, a newly minted Oscar-winning director, couldn’t make a more entertaining film than Uprising director Steven S DeKnight, whose credits lie solely on the small screen. If anything, Del Toro’s overexcitable ambition muddied the focus, while the sequel plays more like the solidly entertaining A-list B-movie we all wanted the first time. While it shares the hyper-realized, lens flare-filled sheen of the Transformers franchise, DeKnight deserves credit for making the large-scale fight scenes feel remarkably coherent, something Michael Bay struggled to do well. In the original many of the bigger showdowns occurred at night which, coupled with some messily choreographed action, meant that they were often a muddle, but DeKnight has wisely shifted the action to daytime and, as a result, it’s easier to engage with the mayhem.
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It’s also easier to engage with the humans this time, and that’s thanks largely to another star turn from Boyega, who is rapidly becoming one of the most adept leading men in Hollywood. He’s a commanding, captivating presence, whether it’s delivering a rousing speech or playfully toying with his frenemy, played by a steely, bland Scott Eastwood. It’s also refreshing to see him use his real accent – it’s still surprisingly rare to see a non-plummy voiced British actor lead a film of this scale, and his success in the role will hopefully lead to further instances. He’s surrounded by a diverse international cast, not all of whom are given much to do (a half-assed love interest is horrendously underwritten) and the film’s clear attempts to appeal to a Chinese audience don’t feel as tokenistic as they have often felt in other blockbusters. There are clearly defined Chinese characters who are allowed to speak in their own language for once (I can’t remember the last film of this scale with so many subtitles) and, in particular, Tian Jing makes a striking impression.
It might drift out of the memory just as easily as it drifted in, but there’s a goofy likability to Pacific Rim: Uprising, a primal thrill to be had, and a confident slickness behind it that means, despite a nearly two-hour running time, it doesn’t outstay its welcome. DeKnight has already hinted that a cinematic universe could be on the way and given the wafer-thin structure of the plot, that seems like a mistake, so before the waters get muddied once again, switch off and enjoy.
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. Nonetheless, having grossed a respectable $101 million at home and an impressive $309 million abroad, “Pacific Rim” struck enough of a global chord to warrant a return engagement, and thus “Pacific Rim Uprising” arrives with del Toro (originally slated to direct, but instead advising in a producer’s capacity) handing over helming duties to Steven S. DeKnight, best known for his showrunner work on Netflix’s “Daredevil” and Starz’s “Spartacus.”
It’s a behind-the-scenes change that’s felt in ways both big and small, as this second entry in the franchise ditches, or downgrades, many of the elements that made del Toro’s original unique, while reconfiguring its style and attitude to more closely align with that of the “Transformers” films – a makeover that not only renders this follow-up unremarkable, but suggests (given the underwhelming box-office performance of Michael Bay’s last Hasbro-based effort) diminished long-term prospects with robot-fatigued audiences.
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DeKnight’s desire to emulate Bay’s blockbuster template is apparent mere minutes into its action. Picking up a decade after its predecessor, which detailed humanity’s use of gigantic Jaegers (massive “mecha” robots manned by two psychically linked pilots) to fend off invading alternate-dimension “kaiju” (towering malevolent creatures), “Pacific Rim Uprising” opens with Jake Pentecost (Boyega) fleeing a shady business deal and, in search of coveted technological goods, meeting teenage orphan Amara (Cailee Spaeny), who’s built herself a Jaeger from spare parts. And not just any old Jaeger: Amara’s DIY creation is a beetle-y ’bot that can be operated by a solo pilot, has the ability to roll itself into a ball, and is named Scrapper.
Jake, the wayward son of Idris Elba’s now-deceased commander Stacker, has long since abandoned his Jaeger-cockpit career for a life of partying and criminality. But his encounter with Amara, and their subsequent arrest for battling a real Jaeger, soon thrusts him back into the service, courtesy of his adopted sister Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), who still sees great potential in her younger sibling.
At the Pan Pacific Defense Force’s new Chinese headquarters (named, as before, Shatterdome!), Jake is reunited with former partner Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), whose gruff greeting implies that they didn’t part on good terms. Together, they’re tasked with mentoring a group of cadets (including Amara) to be Jaeger pilots. Fortunately, since the war against the kaiju was won, no further beasts have emerged from the inter-dimensional breach located in the Pacific Ocean (the whereabouts of Charlie Hunnam’s Raleigh Becket remain unknown).
Yet all is not well for these mature and adolescent heroes-to-be, since the Shao corporation — led by Mrs. Shao (Tian Jing) and her right-hand man Newt (Charlie Day), who’s gone from being a kaiju fanboy scientist to an R&D guy — is prepping a line of Jaeger drones that can be controlled remotely, thus making Jake and his buddies one small step away from obsolescence.
DeKnight establishes this premise with a swiftness that’s apt to give one whiplash — or to leave those unfamiliar with the first “Pacific Rim” struggling to keep up. At the same time, he paints in such broad, clichéd brushstrokes that distinctive personality proves in short supply. Boyega has a natural roguish charm that suits the silly material, and despite being surrounded by more computer-generated chaos than any one actor could hope to survive, his charisma prevents Jake from becoming a dull narrative focus. The same, alas, can’t be said of Eastwood, who, with enough squinting, physically resembles his iconic father Clint, but is a wooden presence most comfortable operating in a single stern-and-handsome register.
For wisecracking eccentricity, the director and his three co-screenwriters (Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, T.S. Nowlin) mainly rely on the tepid bickering of Day’s Newt and Burn Gorman’s genius Herman. They also turn much of their attention to Amara and her pre-adult comrades, which makes this saga feel like “Pacific Rim: The Next Generation” — an impression that plagued the similar “Independence Day: Resurgence.” By the time these kids are asked to operate mankind’s final Jaegers in an all-out campaign to save the world, the film — already firmly rooted in childish fantasies about robots battling monsters — tips completely over into the sort of preposterous juvenalia more apt to provoke rolls of the eyes than gasps of wonder, be it from Western moviegoers or those in Asia, who are directly courted via the participation of the formidable Jing and her fellow supporting Chinese actors.
“Pacific Rim Uprising” delivers plentiful CG mayhem, first between rival Jaegers (thanks to a mysterious rogue sentinel), and then between Jaegers and a trio of kaijus with transformative skills of their own. What it lacks, though, is both del Toro’s trademark Lovecraftian imagery (all slick tentacles and dank subterranean locales) and the sense of thunderous heft that the Mexican auteur bestowed upon his titans.
Here, DeKnight, cinematographer Dan Mindel, and a host of digital artists conjure a bevy of gigantic set pieces marked by cartoony insubstantiality, with Jaegers boasting a swiftness and invulnerability that recalls Bay’s Autobots and Decepticons. The same holds true of the kaiju, including a final super-Godzilla-like behemoth, who get more well-lit screen time than they did in del Toro’s dark-and-rainy predecessor, and yet look far phonier and physically detached from their surroundings — a problem exacerbated by shoddy green-screen work on footage of urban pedestrians fleeing the fiends.
While Lorne Balfe’s score provides requisite bombast, what resounds loudest about “Pacific Rim Uprising” is its lack of adventurousness, to the point that it neuters its genre-splicing conceit’s weirdest ideas — such as the metaphysical “drift” that binds the minds of Jaeger pilots, which here serves as just a tossed-off means of dispensing expository backstory. At least DeKnight is shrewd enough to make one of his mortal characters the true harbinger of doom (albeit one with a sketchy motivation). In the end, however, that individual’s apocalyptic scheming is less distressing than the film’s paint-by-numbers approach to franchise construction, replete with a formulaic promise of future installments that, on the basis of this entry, feels mostly like wishful thinking.
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The crux of Pacific Rim Uprising is how it handles the idea that sequels always need to be bigger. Being a sequel, the expectation is that it should include more robots, larger monsters, and more expansive set pieces. Those are certainly all in there, but at the same time, the movie is so focused on its two main characters that it also somehow feels... small.
Directed by Steven S. DeKnight, Pacific Rim Uprising sets its tone by introducing Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), who explains how the events of the first film changed the world. Not in terms of the planet, but in a street-level way, as Jake’s life is about stealing, partying, and working on the black market. Soon after, he meets a young girl named Amara (Cailee Spaeny) who has her own special project in the works and the two form a reluctant friendship.
By starting the film focused on these two characters, Pacific Rim Uprising instantly connects its audience to something that feels more real than the original. The monstrous Kaiju that attack the world, the Jaegers humans built to fight them—we see how these things have real consequences on real people. It’s a new perspective in the world of Pacific Rim, and it’s a nice, and very surprising, touch.
Once Jake and Amara get to a cadet academy to train as Jaeger pilots, they join a new generation of pilots and those introductions bring a fresh, reboot-esque feeling to the whole thing, which also gives the movie a bit of substance. From there, the epic part begins: There’s a new global threat and there are more Jaegers tasked with saving the world against bigger Kaiju in a plot that has a nice little twist. This is a sequel, after all.
Photo: Universal
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However, all those big action scenes, the ones audiences are going to pay to see, simply don’t have the flair or impact you’d expect. The first Kaiju attack is unique and fun but after that, virtually all the rest of them feel incredibly similar to diminishing returns. After showing off all the new Jaegar powers and attacks, the fights become a series of robots punching things and getting busted into buildings, over and over again. The scenes may technically be bigger in scope, but the repetition and lack of creativity make them feel... reduced from the original. And it shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t.
It also doesn’t help that outside of Boyega and Spaeny’s characters, almost everyone else in the movie feels incredibly disposable. After their introduction at the academy where the film sets them up like they’re going to have dynamic arcs, they don’t, so there’s no particular reason to care about what they’re doing in battle. The one exception, kind of, is Charlie Day’s character Dr. Geiszler, back from the original film, and that’s only cause Day plays him like a coked-out ‘80s character, which is plenty entertaining. But beyond him, Jake, and Amara, there’s almost nothing in the film to get excited about, even when it technically looks more epic than the original.
The fact that DeKnight can take a story as big as Pacific Rim Uprising and reign it in is a huge positive. It gives the film a gritty, grounded feeling that distinguishes it just enough from most similar big blockbusters. But he can’t seem to shake that feeling, so even when there are four giant robots fighting a mountain-sized monster for the fate of the entire planet, the stakes never feel more than personal. Ultimately, the real problem with Uprising is that it never truly manages to rise up.
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Pacific Rim Uprising opens this Friday, March 23.
