It has been five years since Guillermo del Toro’s original hit theaters, but Pacific Rim is finally back. Pacific Rim: Uprising is directed by Steven S. DeKnight, the man behind Marvel’s Daredevil series, and stars John Boyega as Jake Pentecost. Joining Boyega are fellow newcomers Scott Eastwood as Nate Lambert and Cailee Spaeny as Amara Namani. Burn Gorman, Charlie Day and Rinko Kikuchi return to reprise their roles from the original film.
If you’ve never seen the original, don’t worry, Pacific Rim: Uprising does a well-enough job at filling the audience in on the events leading up to this film. Uprising picks up 10 years after the events of the original and it sets up a world that is still rebuilding after the devastating events from the war against the Kaiju. The film wastes no time in introducing the troublemaking Jake, son of fallen hero Stacker Pentecost. After running into trouble with the law, Jake is forced to train a new generation of Jaeger pilots in order to avoid jail. His trainees include Amara Namani, a troubled but brilliant young girl who built her own Jaeger out of scraps.
One of the best parts about this film is John Boyega. The charm and charisma that he brings to this character is amazing and makes for a lead that the audience can root for. He’s the gel that keeps the movie together since his chemistry with the rest of the cast is crucial to making the film be as good as it is. Whether it’s his mentor-mentee relationship with Amara, his rivalry with Nate, or his brother-sister relationship with Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako, watching him interact with others is very fun to see. The one relationship that sticks out like sore thumb is the completely unnecessary love triangle situation that goes on between Jake, Nate and Jules, a character whose name you might hear once at most. She only seems to show up whenever it’s convenient to the story and the storyline involving her never even gets resolved.
Guillermo del Toro’s original painted a somewhat dark and gritty world, and that’s something that Uprising could have used a little more of. DeKnight’s sequel is very loud and filled with vibrant colors that make the story feel a little more comical than its predecessor. Where in the original you could feel the tension and the weight of the war, the sequel sort of makes you feel like everything will be fine at the end. In a film of this magnitude, where the stakes should be extremely high, that’s not a good thing to feel. As an audience member, you know a Kaiju invasion is coming, and yet you never actually feel like the world in the story is threatened.
Despite the fact that the heroes feel safe, Uprising still manages to provide some pretty fantastic action pieces. It’s fun to see how different every Jaeger is from the other, not just from their looks but their techniques and fighting styles, as well. As far as the Kaiju go, the film does something very interesting with them that should have been terrifying, but because the characters never feel like they are in danger, it makes this new development feel like a missed opportunity more than anything else.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is far from perfect, but it is a good time in the theater. If you are looking for something entertaining to watch while waiting for the upcoming blockbuster season, this is a great choice. The Pacific Rim franchise has been brimming with potential for greatness since the original was first announced, but it has yet to come even remotely close to that. Still, both installments have been fun and Uprising leaves the door open for a third film that has the possibility to finally live up to its potential, and that is something great to look forward to. Pacific Rim: Uprising is a 65% for me.
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