Pacific Rim Uprising faces a double whammy of expectation. First, it has to fill the shoes of director Guillermo del Toro and be a worthy sequel to boot. Second, with five years between movies it’s slightly belated, a situation that rarely ends well.
Director Steven S. DeKnight and producer/star John Boyega join forces here to move the story on and inject new elements, while at the same time giving fans and general audiences what they want, i.e. Jaegers and Kaijus bashing the hell out of each other with lots of buildings collapsing along the way.
The balancing act starts promisingly enough. Boyega plays Jake, son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba’s character from part one). A decade since the devastation of the last film he’s turned his back on piloting Jaegers and is now partying and scavenging to make his way in this drastically-altered world. When he runs into young Amara (Cailee Spaeny), who’s managed to knock up her own Jaeger, it takes him on a path back to his father’s stamping ground of the PPDC and a reunion with former buddy Nate (Scott Eastwood).
At that point, DeKnight has to start bringing in former characters such as Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), Dr.Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) and Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), who’ve all gone their separate ways into the various plot strands. If you remember these people, and I kind of do, then fine. If you don’t then you have to keep up a bit. Some things are recapped but other aspects, such as the piloting of the Jaegers, are just thrown in and maybe needed more explanation for first-timers.
Kikuchi isn’t given that much to do, while Day and Gorman resume their snappy wisecracker/cartoon boffin double act from before. The pair roam around like ex-Ghostbusters looking for a spook and spark well off one another. Meanwhile Jake and Nate have to train Amara and a team of international newbies how to “move like Jaeger” (sorry) and take on a resurgent batch of Kaijus, who are back for some reason.
The film doesn’t gel much and floats around in chunks before everything comes together for a final battle. In my view, DeKnight improves on his predecessor by setting the Jaeger/Kaiju faceoffs in broad daylight. There the shiny robots and weird creatures can be done justice, whereas in Pacific Rim everything was murky and indistinct.
Another plus is the light atmosphere, which for me was preferable to the first movie with its daft concept taken a little too seriously. Boyega is clearly having fun and is his usual cocky yet likeable self. However, Uprising could have done with ditching a couple of characters just to give things breathing space. If you want more, the home release is happy to oblige, with deleted scenes and a few featurettes. In an age of content-light DVDs, that’s a good thing in my book.
Despite the last half hour or so being incoherent I enjoyed the film and was happy to leave my brain at the door as the carnage commenced. I’m not sure it’s done enough to warrant a third instalment, something that’s suggested at the end as these things often do. But there’s enough electricity and indeed eccentricity to make Pacific Rim a more watchable mega-franchise than most.
Pacific Rim Uprising is out now.
