Review - Pacific Rim: Uprising

The original Pacific Rim was a moderate success back in 2013, and while it took a while, we finally got the sequel. Pacific Rim Uprising is helmed by Stephen DeKnight of Netflix Daredevil fame, and stars John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny and Jing Tian, among others.

Set 10 years after the events of the first film, we follow Jake Pentecost (Boyega), son of the legendary Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba); the former Marshal of the Pan-Pacific Defense Corp. Jake is living a delinquent life in the remnants of the derelict cities of the US West Coast. After a chance encounter with orphan Amara Namani, Jake ends up back in the PPDC, from which he was ousted. Jake and his former partner Nate, who pilot Gypsy Avenger, are training a group of cadets while PPDC head honcho Mako Mori (a returning Rinko Kikuchi) is mulling a new drone initiative from Shao Corporation (run by Jing Tian’s Liwen Shao), which would make pilots like Jake obsolete. The plot thickens when a Jaeger drone attacks Gypsy Avenger and kills Mako, and then the rest of the drones are taken over by Shao Corp employee (and former PPDC member) Newt, who is secretly in the thrall of the Precursors. The Precursors send multiple kaiju before the drones can be overridden, and the cadets are brought together to help defeat the giant monsters before they can launch themselves into Mount Fuji, where the kaiju blood would cause a deadly chain reaction, thereby terraforming the planet. Of course, our heroes succeed, and vow to take the fight to the enemy.

My first impression of the film is that it’s a very basic, very simplified sequel, that doubles down on the giant robot/kaiju fights, and eschews the slower pace of the original movie. The movie moves along briskly, and clocking in at about 1 hour 50 minutes, feels about 60% as long. As an action movie enthusiast, I personally had no issue with this, but it did feel like the plot was secondary to the action. The movie is by no means terrible, and the Pacific Rim franchise reminds me of another series of movies with a similar plot: Independence Day.

Both movies have a somber opening salvo involving aliens pushing humanity to the brink, humanity finding a way to fight back, a big dramatic speech by a lead figure, a heroic sacrifice… there’s lots of parallels, and that’s nothing against Pacific Rim, but both sequels weren’t quite as good as the originals. The difference being, where Independence Day Resurgence was a bit overwrought and couldn’t decide if it wanted to be serious or not, Pacific Rim: Uprising does not have that problem, and that’s where this movie succeeds for me.

This movie, and its main characters, have a lot of fun, and they acknowledge it. There’s a lot of tongue in cheek moments, and the self-awareness makes for a fun, refreshing experience at the theater. So while the plot details and twists were all relatively predictable, the glee emanating from John Boyega (one of my favorite sci-fi actors right now) and others makes it an easy watch. This is one of those movies if it were on TV, I’d

leave it on and just continue to enjoy it in the background.

If you have some time to spare and want to see a fun movie, Pacific Rim: Uprising is definitely for you.