Pacific Rim Uprising Movie Review: John Boyega's Robots Vs Monsters Saga is High on Thrills

The Kaiju and the Jaegers are back! Pacific Rim Uprising, the sequel to the 2013 movie Pacific Rim, is here and going by the trailers, it promises to show more showdowns between robots and monsters. Unlike the first movie which was directed by Guillermo del Toro, the sequel is directed by debutante Steven S Deknight. Even Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba, the protagonists from the first movie, give it a miss to make way for John Boyega to shine. Joining him in the cast are Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Jing Tian and Adria Arjona. Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Burn Gorman reprise their characters from the previous movie as well.  Here's our review of Pacific Rim Uprising,

Ten years after the final battle in the last movie, Earth is considered safe from the attacks of the Kaiju, that were orchestrated by an alien race called Precursors, with not a single incident reported. However, the planet still suffers from the aftermath and the Jaeger patrol, led by Pan-Pacific Defence Corps, is still on. This seemingly safe life is shattered with the discovery of a rogue murderous Jaeger that is controlled by an alien brain. The Pan-Pacific Defence Corps realise that the kaijus are making a return and it is upto the next generation  of pilots led by a rebellious Jake (John Boyega), who is the son of deceased hero Stacker Pentecost, and an orphan Amara (Cailee Spaeny) to make sure aliens are defeated twice.

While watching Pacific Rim Uprising, I was reminded of the episode of How I Met Your Mother where the gang is excited to see a ludicrous match featuring wrestlers and robots. Why? Because it is wrestlers vs robots, and how can you not be excited by the idea? That's the same sort of excitement and fun you look for when you see the Jaegers (huge robots operated by two pilots) and Kaiju (sea-dwelling monsters) take shots at each other. Though the movie takes its own sweet time to deliver on this, you can't help but feel excited on seeing robots beat the shit out of the monsters (even when the sequence drags to no end).

The action sequences in the last half-an-hour portion are thrilling and is worth your money, if you are going to see purely robots take on monsters.

But, like I said before, the movie surely takes long to get to the point. Till then we are caught in knowing the lead characters who are all staple caricatures taken straight out of Michael Bay's brand of movies. So there is the charismatic, rebellious lead character, his rule-abiding boring frenemy, a bunch of annoying teens with negligible to nil character development, led by a brattish orphan who plays a part in the final victory. And not to mention, the traitor amidst the heroes. Also, to appease audiences of all regions, the secondary characters are made up of various nationalities, from Russia to China (a huge market for these movies) and even India (Disney's Karan Brar).

Even the plot takes liberal inspirations from Transformer series and the recent bland sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence. To quote some examples, there is the case of someone close to the lead character getting a tragic demise and in the process, bring the hero out in him. There is a mid-credits scene in the movie that is exactly how the Independence Day sequel ended. And did I mention about the unexplained romantic subplot involving Adria Arjona's character that should have been left on the editing table.

I was not a huge fan of the original Pacific Rim movie, which is definitely one of this year's Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro's weaker efforts. However Pacific Rim possessed the director's eye for visual appeal that make it stand out from the rest of the movies in the genre. The sequel, while having some really polished CGI, lacks this visual flair and therefore that Toro touch too. Thus, Uprising ends up being a by-the-numbers generic blockbuster with no personality of its own.

If Uprising nailed one thing right that the first movie didn't, it was roping in the right man for the lead character. John Boyega (Finn from the new Star Wars movies), who also makes his debut as a producer, brings in the right amount of chutzpah and charisma into his two-dimensional character and makes it entertaining. His protagonist makes a tad more memorable impact than what Charlie Hunnam did in the first movie. I found Hunnam, an otherwise likeable actor as seen in The Lost City of Z and Sons of Anarchy, delivering quite a bland performance as the lead in Pacific Rim. A mistake Boyega, thankfully, doesn't make here.

That said, to compensate for that lack of blandness, we have Scott Eastwood, whose unappealing performance jars in front of Boyega's infectious charm. Though her character is something we have seen in countless movies, the young Cailee Spaeny is quite good and has the markings of a fine actress. Even the other young cast members are decent. Charlie Day plays Charlie Day and that's all you can say, though he gets to try a different beat here.

Yay!

- John Boyega and Cailee Spaeny

- The thrilling action sequences

- Special effects are good

- Robots vs Monsters, man, robots vs monsters

Nay!

- It's a generic blockbuster filled with the usual tropes and caricatures

- Scott Eastwood

- Slow-moving in the initial sequences

- Lacks the visual flair of the original (and Toro's touch, of course)

Final Thoughts

Pacific Rim Uprising is catered to those viewers who love to see things getting exploded and cities getting destroyed in great detail on the big screen. Not to forget, Robots vs Monsters! It is that kind of movie that you might enjoy for its mindless action sequences and forget all about it, once you get out of the theatre.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 22, 2018 09:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).