Mark my words, some 10-year-old kid is gonna walk into Pacific Rim: Uprising hopped up on Frosted Flakes, Coca-Cola and Smarties and their head is going to fuckin' explode by the end of it. Uprising is pretty much a straight redo of the first film, just cranked up a notch. Or six notches. It takes the conceits of the original and pushes them to new and ridiculous heights, charging forward with all the grace of a recently divorced linebacker with spiked shoulder pads and an axe to grind.
As an extension of the groundwork laid out by the first film, I guess most of the sequel's story makes logical sense, yet I still counted at least five times where I looked at my buddy while watching and could only hold my hands up in utter confusion as to what was actually happening. That being said, it's clear this film is aimed at a slightly younger crowd than the first. Not necessarily a bad thing as this one does tone down some of the original's scarier elements. For instance, there's nothing anywhere near as emotionally intense as young Mori's flashback to being chased down the street by a giant kaiju crab beast.
Part of the fun of this batshit-crazy sequel is to let this gleefully exploding trash can of a film unfold itself. Uprising's story is more interesting than expected, thanks to a number of surprising turns it takes with the motivations of certain characters. I won't say any more other than that people might be legitimately shocked to see who and what is behind some of the story's most nefarious twists. There's one specific moment from the first film that ends up playing a HUGE part in this one, and it's handled in a nifty way. Still, by the film's end, plot is thrown out in favor of a giddy free-for-all where sense goes out the window in favor of giant monsters going at it.
The cast does fine with the material, with new cast members John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny and Adria Arjona joined by returning Pacific Rim vets Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Burn Gorman. Boyega plays Jake Pentecost, son of Idris Elba's martyred Stacker Pentecost from the original film. It's strange that Stacker had a son that was never mentioned in the first movie, but the back and forth between him and "Big Sis" Mori (Kikuchi) help to alleviate that, adding a bit of heft to the familiar "in your father's shadow" trope that Jake deals with throughout most of the film. The world has changed in a big way since Gypsy Danger and company saved the world, and a big part of that change is the appearance of Liwen Shao (Tian Jing), a businesswoman who wants to replace human-piloted Jaegers with drones should the kaiju ever return. Newt (Day) is working for Shao as a chief member of her organization, helping her vision come to fruition. I'd tell you more but I really don't want to risk a seizure by attempting to explain it all away.
But forget all that. We've got robots and giant nasties to discuss, right? What the sequel gets right that the original sorta screwed the pooch on is that you can actually make out what the hell is going on in the various battles. Gone are Pacific 1's dreary underwater settings and the night-time fights that played out like that one Saturday-night brawl at the local bar that someone had you in a headlock in for most of. Unfortunately, one big issue with the sequel is that the Jaegers and kaiju is don't have much in the way of character. The giant robots from the first film were all pretty cool and recognizable, even if most of them didn't really last too long. The Jaegers introduced in Uprising are devoid of personality. I remember hearing rumors of a Mexican Day of the Dead themed Jaeger making an appearance in this film months before its release — which sounded awesome! — but there's nothing even remotely like that in the final film.
The kaiju aren't nearly as threatening or memorable either this time around. They simply look like slight variations on what we've already seen. The exciting battles make these somewhat disappointing elements tolerable, but it winds up feeling like a missed opportunity overall. There's also the introduction of some (GASP!) new enemies, but, by the time they appear, you're going to find yourself overwhelmed by non-stop insanity involving everything from characters dressed like Tifa from Final Fantasy VII … to really awkward love triangles … to tech that could never ever see the light of day for at least a millennium … to characters drawing conclusions about what's going on with the bare minimum amount of strategical information at hand. So, yeah, it's a lot to process.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is exactly what you think it is, just delivered with a sincere attempt to surprise you with a couple of plot curveballs. It's a love letter to an era when watching cartoons like Shogun Warriors and Voltron was the order of the day. Some kids out there are gonna have their mind blown while you sit there rolling your eyes. That's the rub … unless you secretly have a Jaeger collection that you take out and polish every night.
