This rock ‘em sock ‘em robot movie does not pack a punch. You’ll see tons of oversize metal Jaegers vs. the alien kaiju coming through the breach you saw in the original film at the bottom of the ocean. The battles feel interminable as the monstrous combatants take down major portions of Tokyo and everything else in their path.
Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro Produced wrote and directed the first Pacific Rim. And he Produced this sequel. It’s too bad his touch is missing on this one. The plot line does not hold together well which falls on Uprising Writer/Director, Steven S. DeKnight.
DeKnight creates mayhem and destruction using endless, relentless CGI stupidity to create the action. Even the human characters are too robotic. The pacing is off as well. Even when there are jokes, they’re not given enough space for the laughs.
The diversity of cast and the rampant use of colored lights in holograms and on metal attract attention to make it appear as if there is something constantly happening. The sounds of the destruction of metal, glass, plus so many roads, bridges and buildings getting smashed to bits, adds to the confusion even more. Maybe this movie’s hidden message is a major scream for infrastructure repair?
John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi) plays Jake Pentecost, the son of legendary Jaeger Pilot, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) who starred in the original Pacific Rim film. You only see Dad briefly in the beginning and then he’s gone, even though he’s talked about a lot.
This one takes place 10 years after the kaiju’s defeat. The world is still littered with the bleached bones of the giant enemy and the shells of rusting jaegers. Jake is reluctant to join the family business and be a pilot like Dad. He has since abandoned his training only to become caught up in the lucrative but illegal business of scavenging jaeger parts. He gets drawn in after a mega chase with a spunky 15-year-old Jaeger scavenger and talented builder, Amara (newcomer Cailee Spaeny).
Jake is coerced by his estranged sister, Rinko, (Mako More) to live up to his father’s legacy. She is putting together a new group of young Jaeger pilots making Jake work with his former co-pilot, Lambert, (Scott Eastwood , The Fate of the Furious).
Eastwood is a handsome dude but, but most of the time, looks like he’s delivering his lines without nuance. When Jake and Lambert are piloting the Jaeger, they look more like they’re just running side-by-side on an elliptical machine with numerous colorful holograms floating around them. It’s appears as if they’re on an arcade dance machine or just working out in tandem.
Back from the first film, scientists, Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) and Dr. Newton Geisler (Charlie Day) are working with Liwen Shao (Tian Jing) on a new generation of pilotless Jaegers. Gottlieb is a fun, slightly mad scientist. He is more engaging as a character and somewhat the voice of reason. Who or what turns out to be good or bad is pretty predictable. We got it about a quarter of the way through.
The original film did so well in China, we see why this is such a China-centric film. Entire scenes shot in Mandarin are subtitled in English. Pretty obvious tactic to get that audience.
An interesting device from the first movie is virtually ignored in this one. The mind meld that allowed the Jaeger pilots to control the enormous machines was central in the first film, but it’s just a throw away here.
It’s simply an atrocious movie with barely coherent plot lines. And lines like “Don’t let other people define who you are.” The audience is given no credit, nor reasons, for wanting anything but mindless action sequences, and that’s what this delivers.
Universal Pictures 111 Minutes PG-13
