Considering the considerable financial and critical success enjoyed by the original Pacific Rim in 2013, it was only a matter of time before we received a sequel. Pacific Rim: Uprising, released in theatres this week, brings back several familiar faces, with even more of the cataclysmic robot-versus-kaiju battles than its original. But the boost in spectacle doesn't come without a cost, as the sequel seems to have lost much of the soul that made the original special.
While the Guillermo del Toro-directed original felt like an adult's loving homage to the giant-robot and B-flick monster genre of pop-culture, Uprising feels more like an adult's cynical attempt to imitate that, with clichéd tropes and cartoonish plot twists that simply fail to resonate.
Uprising takes place 10 years after the original film, with humanity beginning to recover from the catastrophic kaiju attacks. The film follows Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the wayward son of the original's Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), a disgraced Jaeger ace who has fallen to a life of crime. After an arrest for a serious crime, Jake is given a choice: go to jail, or return to the Jaeger training academy to train the new generation of pilots. What follows is a series of confusing story set-ups and exposition dialogue, peppered with the occasional uninspiring action sequence. By the middle of the film, a plot twist occurs that makes the film throw almost all its plot out the window for one long brawl between a mob of robots and a trio of kaiju.
On the one hand, there is merit to the argument that plot hardly matters in a film like Uprising. There is an undeniable childish glee to watching giant robots -- and monsters -- just levelling a city with rockets and lasers and ridiculous looking chainswords. The original Pacific Rim also delivered on all of that, but it's story -- while admittedly pulpy and unoriginal -- that was conveyed with genuine heart and appreciation for its inspiration, which made the silly childhood wish-fulfilment aspect of it feel nostalgic rather than silly.
Part of that appreciation came through in the restraint shown in del Toro's original. While still very over-the-top, being a film primarily about robots and monsters ripping each other to shreds, there was a deliberateness to the way everything unfolded, from the giant Jaegers' movements to the way action sequences played out. Having recently re-watched the original, I can appreciate the groundedness of its battles, a result of the sluggish movement of the Jaegers compared to the kaijus' animalistic pouncing, which made each little move in the battle feel significant and weighty. You can see and feel the mechanics of each movement, which remind you that the Jaegers are machines.
By comparison, Uprising's battles feel cartoonish, as the upgraded Jaegers now leap and somersault around their kaiju opponents, giving battles a more frenetic tone more akin to the Transformers films, as these building-sized robots jump around like ninjas in a karate movie.
The aforementioned "deliberateness" also extends beyond the action. The plot itself is mired in uninspired clichés that -- while the same could be said of the original -- were seemingly included haphazardly in an attempt to imitate the original's pulpy tone and atmosphere. There is little cohesion or follow through to many parts of the plot, as the film establishes thread after thread without ever really resolving them in a meaningful way, if at all.
For example, the attempt to shift the focus to the new generation of cadet pilots, which falls flat as none of them receive any development. I don't want to blame the actors, but the younger cast also seems to lack the gravitas present in the original cast, which makes it difficult to take many of them seriously.
While John Boyega thrives in the lovable maverick role, he simply doesn't have Idris Elba's presence. While he remains consistently enjoyable to watch, Boyega alone isn't enough to give the film the emotional weight it tries to achieve. Meanwhile, supporting actors like Jake's Jaeger partner Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), mechanic-prodigy Amara (Cailee Spaeny) or even returning characters like Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) are all either one-dimensional or under-utilised. While the film seemingly wants to shift focus to a younger cast of Jaeger cadets, the cadets themselves are so painfully underdeveloped its confusing why the film chose to establish them at all.
The worst of the bunch is definitely mechanic/potential love interest Jules Reyes (Adria Arjona), who acts and is treated like an important character despite appearing in all of perhaps three scenes in the entire film, and gains virtually zero development. Charlie Day and Burn Gorman succeed in delivering several chuckles with their respective quirky characters, returning from the original film, but their humour often comes off as forced, with Charlie Day's character in particular feeling like he belongs in a different film.
Looking back on how the last film ended, with the kaiju-producing portal collapsed and all the world's Jaegers destroyed, the film was probably never intended to be a franchise by the ones who created it.
Guillermo del Toro chose to step down as director, despite being initially named for the position. The result is a film that obviously tries hard to build upon the original, but misses the point entirely. This makes much of the film feel generally hollow, despite the added glamour.
