*** outta *****

3 outta 5

Pacific Rim: Uprising does deliver the promised giant robots smashing giant monsters.  With the previous instalment’s writer/director Guillermo del Toro not helming this one, he went and won Best Picture for 2017’s Shape of Water instead, the sequel is missing his distinct flair.  It does, however, keep the same basic yet slightly updated look for the monsters and the giant robots.  This is a bit of a rote sequel but not a bad one because anything that involves a lot of giant robots punching giant monsters is difficult to completely screw up. 

Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) is the son of a famous Jaeger pilot.  Jaegers are giant robots that defeated the giant monster Kaiju from destroying the Earth but it cost Jake’s dad his life.  Scamming to survive, Jake finds a young woman, Amara (Caliee Spaeny), who has built a smaller Jaeger all on her own.  This catches the attention of the Jaeger pilots and Jake’s sister, Mako (Rinko Kikunchi), and they draft Jake and Amara to join the Jaeger program with Jake’s aggressive co-pilot, Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood).  But their giant robot fighting days may be numbered as a large corporation wants to replace them with drones.  Doctor Newton (Charlie Day) is a part of this program but his old co-worker, Doctor Hermann (Burn Gorman) needs Newton’s help as the Kaiju may be coming back to Earth. 

One unique thing that Uprising does that wasn’t in its predecessor is giant robots fighting other giant robots.  Since the Jaeger’s are vessels for good guys when an evil Jaeger attacks it’s an unexpected surprise that opens up to a larger conspiracy plot.  There are also some nifty plot twists as to how the Kaiju end up back on Earth and it especially lets Charlie Day to stretch out and to some crazy stuff.  

Day gets to add more layers of weirdness as the movie goes on and his final scene is really great, even if it is shameless sequel bait.  Day also reunites with his Pacific Rim co-star Gorman and they get to do a bit more of their excellent straight man / crazy guy chemistry which is always welcome. 

The sequel ditches Charlie Hunnam’s main character which is good because he was a bit of a drag but it is odd he randomly disappears.  Mako was a pretty big part of the first film but she basically just pops up here to get Pentecost to the Jaeger facility and then is unceremoniously disposed of.  That may be a move to generate sympathy but it’s also kind of a lame way to get rid of the old cast and in with the new.

Like in the first film, the stuff with the humans can be a mixed bag.  Boyega easily carries his scenes with charm and there’s a lot of hollering in Jaeger suits that he sells.  In a weird moment, he says his dad was the one for big, inspirational speeches which he can’t measure up to then he proceeds to do a big, inspirational speech.   The snarky back and forth he has with Eastwood is trite, although there are a few fun moments like when Lambert berates Penetcost about making an overloaded ice cream sundae.   There’s even the two guys going after the same girl which isn’t really needed at all but its resolution is nicely unexpected. 

What drags a lot in Uprising is pretty much anything to do with Amara.  She has a great introductory scene where she and Pentecost escape in a wild, junkyard scrapheap Jaeger but afterwards she’s kind of a whiny annoyance as Amara tries to excel at Jaeger school but is confronted by the resident bully.  Most of the cadets are really irritating and Uprising mostly refuses to really bump them off in any nasty deaths, unlike del Toro in the original who gleefully disposed of several of the Jaeger pilots that nicely increased the stakes. 

Some complained about the original that almost all of the monster fighting was in settings that were murky and rainy which was nicely moody but made it hard to appreciate the effects.  Uprising rectifies that by having the climatic extended battle take place in daylight.  It doesn’t have the moodiness but it does look epic.  There’re some interesting different configurations of the Kaiju here, when the Kaiju start taking over the giant robots it creates a different dynamic and the big final brawl with three Kaiju has city destroying messiness leading up to an even bigger, ridiculously large monster at the finale.   In one of the movie’s cooler moments, one of the Jaeger’s starts literally picking up multiple buildings and smashing them on top of a monster’s head.   The monsters may not have the jaw-dropping otherworldly unstoppable menace they had the first time but they still look cool and roar loudly. 

Pacific Rim: Uprising is missing del Toro’s unique touch that made a giant robot smashing giant monster movie seems oddly moving and dramatically powerful.   This is a bit by-the-numbers sequel but it happily supplies giant robots vs. giant monsters.  Instead of being awe-inspiring, it’s mostly just kind of goofy but still fun.