Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

Release Date: 23 March, 2018


What's It About: 10 years after the war against the Kaiju ended, Jake Pentecost, the son of hero Stacker Pentecost, lives a life off the grid breaking into abandoned Jaeger factories to steal parts and sell them on the black market.


The Good: This was surprisingly entertaining and interesting for what it was. There were some interesting twists that I was not expecting at all and some really cool elements were introduced that really made some of the story pop out. The new Jaegers are awesome looking - think less Cherno Alpha and more Striker Eureka - and the Kaiju in turn are way more menacing. The inclusion of Shao added a nice dimension to the narrative and sets things up for the logical progression of the story. But really, the twists and turns in the story that facilitated some super cool effects and scenes definitely made this film pop.


The Bad: First things first: There's no Raleigh Becket. He's mentioned once, but that's it. However, the film's biggest caveat is the children sub-plot. I've never been convinced that adding children side-characters is a good idea, especially as it always feels shoehorned into the main arcs, and we saw in Iron Man 3 and Transformers 5 that it lacked emotional heft and felt like the writers were running out of ideas for character drama. In this film that is taken to the extreme and many of the elements involving them are a little too far-fetched.


Best Performance: John Boyega as Jake Pentecost. Boyega is a good actor and one for the modern age. He characterizes much of the impatience of millennials and its associated charms and pitfalls. It shows in his peformance as Finn in Star Wars and also here. If anything, Pentecost is a bit more like Han Solo than anyone else, and even in a uniform he doesn't look like he fits in anywhere.


Should I Watch It: I didn't think it was possible to one-up the spectacle from the first Pacific Rim but here we are. It's back, bigger and badder than ever. That said, whilst all the explosions and punches are a step up from before, the core humanity is reduced to a background element, particularly the fantastic concept of Drifting, which at this point is a mere afterthought and not a core theme of the original. If you're into tokusatsu, you gotta see how it looks with lots of money. If you have no investment in the genre, avoid.


Post-Credits Scene: No


Similar Films: Any Japanese film that has giant monsters, or any anime that has giant robots


Trailer: