By Anthony Nolfi
It won’t win any Academy Awards, but for a two-hour CGI-filled extravaganza, “Pacific Rim: Uprising” is enjoyable enough to keep audiences in their seats.
The first film, directed by recent Best Picture winner Guillermo del Toro, was an enjoyable romp on its own. It had giant robots and giant monsters – and more importantly, it featured said robots and monsters punching one another.
It was hectic and not particularly story-oriented, but it was loads of fun and a marvel of computer-generated animation, even in an era where that sort of thing is typically overused.
The sequel is more of the same.
Del Toro returns as a producer, while Steven S. DeKnight, mainly known as the creator behind the Starz series “Spartacus,” takes over with “Pacific Rim: Uprising” being his cinematic directorial debut.
Taking place 10 years after the final battle of the first film, the movie focuses on Jack Pentecost (played by John Boyega), son of one of the heroes from the original Pacific Rim. His life of debauchery and stealing parts to sell for profit ends with him meeting Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny.)
The two are arrested but find themselves recruited into the Jaeger piloting program instead. They are then trained within the mechanized robotic suits in case the monsters, known as kaiju, return to Earth.
Jack and Amara have a fun dynamic, bickering back and forth like a married couple but bonding over memories as they train. Both respective actors fulfill their jobs exceptionally well and become genuine protagonists worth rooting for.
Most other actors in the film are standard background soldiers, pilots and the like. None are particularly bad, though they do come off as stock and generic.
The exceptions are returning cast members Charlie Day and Burn Gorman, who reprise their roles as scientists working on new Jaeger technology and studying the kaiju.
These two are great, and while their lines sometimes come off as fast techno-babble, they still manage to convey what’s needed for the heroes to save the day.
Plenty of the design work – whether on the robotic suits, the monstrous kaiju or the sets themselves – is top notch as well.
It really does look like a toy box come to life.
Frankly, that is the main appeal of the film: the action scenes that break out throughout the run time.
The special effects of the original were top-notch, and that level of production, thankfully, carried over to the sequel.
Jaegers fighting kaiju, jaegers fighting rogue jaegers and all the cinematic destruction happening as a result are thoroughly enjoyable and the finale is exhilarating and over-the-top.
Some may not give into this kind of hokey action, though.
In this paradigm where Avengers are taking over for the dead horse Transformers, the action might come off as derivative to those who are bored to death of watching robots uppercut other robots or a giant monster smashing through a dozen skyscrapers.
Still, if you turn your brain off and go along for the ride, “Pacific Rim: Uprising” is an explosive, chaotic good time.
4/5 Stars
The Crow’s Nest rates movies between one and five stars, with five stars being the highest possible score.
Header photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
