PACIFIC RIM UPRISING – Review

PACIFIC RIM UPRISING is a cut above the standard heavy-metal action blockbuster, with a wealth of visual detail and even an occasional pulse of intelligence beating beneath all of the mayhem. But it’s still a profoundly silly movie, so keep your expectations in check and you’re likely to have a decent time with it.

PACIFIC RIM UPRISING is set a decade after the climax of the first film, when Stacker Pentecost (as played by Idris Elba) had sacrificed himself shutting off that bottom-of-the-sea gateway between Earth and that nasty alien dimension that kept serving up those skyscraper-stomping beasts known as Kaiju. Production on the Kaiju-battling Jaegers, the equally-immense robots controlled by pilots positioned inside their heads, has continued. Our hero for the sequel is Stacker’s son Jake (John Boyega), introduced as a grifter, cheating those looking for weapons and war relics. He’s convinced by his long-lost sister Mako (Rinko Kikuchi) to join the Pan Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC), to help recruit and train a new team of young pilots known as Rangers. Also on his team is old arch nemesis Lambert (Scott Eastwood) and teenage outcast Amara (Cailee Spaeny), who built a Jaeger named Scrapper from junk parts. The Kaiju return, again to threaten mankind’s existence, and intrigue develops when a rogue, seemingly pilot-free Jaeger arrives courtesy of a new drone program overseen by the nefarious Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day)

Though there’s nothing here to bring a new fan on board, if you liked the first PACIFIC RIM, you’ll like this chaotic sequel, which actually improves on the original. It’s thirty minutes shorter and it takes itself less seriously. Following the global success of first film (which did only middling business in the U.S.), its director Guillermo del Toro (producer only for part 2) didn’t feel much need to stray from the successful formula for the sequel. PACIFIC RIM UPRISING, therefore, has almost everything PACIFIC RIM had, only this time it’s easier to see what’s going on. My main beef with part one was that it was overlong and that the battle scenes took place not only at night, but also in the rain which, combined with the 3D glasses (and sub-standard projection when I saw it), so often made it difficult to comprehend what was happening. The new film’s large-scale action sequences, directed with panache and disaster-porn glee by Steven DeKnight, play out in daylight. The action sequences are mixed with frequent scenes of light comic relief, some of which work (we know Scott Eastwood looks just like his dad, but to watch him blatantly caricature Clint is surprisingly fun), and some of which don’t (the film has a light enough comic tone and doesn’t need Charlie Day’s villain to be so buffoonish). Unfortunately, PACIFIC RIM UPRISING shares its predecessor’s tin ear for the spoken word. Dialogue, as if it even matters, is delivered at breakneck speed and is barely audible amongst the cacophony of metal on monster.

John Boyega is a more likable lead than Charlie Human’s brooding hero in part one, and he’s surrounded by a talented cast of fresh young faces, especially Cailee Spaeny as his spirited sidekick. Rinko Kikuchi, Adria Arjona, Burn Gorman, Karan Brar and Tian Jing fill out that type of multi-ethnic cast (like we saw in last year’s XXX THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE) that should insure worldwide box-office. Of course the actors merely serve as background filler for the real stars of the show: those robot vs monster showdowns and director DeKnight fills up the screen with enough mechanical eye candy to dazzle the inner 12-year-old’s appetite for destruction in us all.

3 of 5 Stars