Friday, March 23, 2018

FILM REVIEW: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

Directed by Steven S. DeKnight

* * 1/2


On an exposition level, Pacific Rim: Uprising does what a sequel should do. I have not seen the first Pacific Rim (though Matt Zoller Seitz’s 4-star review piques my curiosity), and this 2018 sequel told me all the basics of what I needed to know about the world and the characters that inhabit the story. I felt at home right away, but as Uprising continued on, though entertaining, it’s one of those sequels that ultimately makes you wish you were watching the first one instead. I repeat: I’ve not seen its predecessor and I wish I was watching that.

A decade has passed since Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) and his team took control of the Jaegers (colossal neural-controlled battle bots) defeated the Kaijus (giant monsters that obliterate everything in their path) and made Earth safe once again. In those 10 years, the world has mostly healed and is fully functional. But Jake can’t live without living on the edge; with Jaegers now outlawed, Jake makes a living off of Jaeger components on the black market. He has a run-in with Amara (Cailee Spaeny), a young and rebellious orphan. They are both caught with a Jaeger, and are arrested by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. Jake is given a choice, though: go to prison, or go to the PDCC as an instructor. He takes the latter. Amara joins alongside and becomes a cadet.

Routine PDCC operations are interrupted when a rogue Jaeger inexplicably attacks the city as well as the PDCC base, taking a loved one of Jake’s in the process. Without saying too much, the Kaiju threat may or may not be terminated after all. Jake bands together with his former colleague Nate (Scott Eastwood) to save the world once again. Meanwhile, Amara’s rebelliousness gets in the way of her training with the inability to focus as well as frequent debacles with fellow students.

I’m not particularly proud of this attempt at a plot synopsis. I’ll be completely honest that I had to refer to Wikipedia a few times. It has nothing to do with an overly-confounding story, but I was still lost from time to time. While I commend the courteous exposition Uprising provided, there was still so much jargon important to the world of Pacific Rim being thrown around that it quickly become a head-scratching experience. On one hand, my fault for not seeing the first film. On the other hand, a great sequel should always be able to (mostly) stand on its own.

It doesn’t help that action scenes, at times are quite clunky. Though not nearly as bad as, say, a Michael Bay film, action scenes become an overbearing torrent of hasty editing – editing so fast I could barely keep up. The sequence where the PDCC base is under attack is the worst offender. I was watching. I was attentive. Next thing I knew, it was over. I actually mouthed to myself “what happened?”

There is a huge problem with character balance as well. Uprising so dearly wants to introduce key players into the Pacific Rim universe with Amara and the rest of her crew in training (most of which are built up to have a significant role), but is so badly wants to continue Jake and Nate’s stories. As for the supporting cast, they just seem to exist in the background. And then there’s the villain; I can’t reveal who it is, but their purpose feels so forcefully wedged in that it felt like they were a last minute idea.

There’s sort of a love triangle going on with Jake, Nathan, and Jules (Adria Arjona – I’m going to assume she had a bigger part in the first film). This is brought up here and there, but goes nowhere. Nowhere.

It’s not all bad, though. I mentioned that the movie just can’t resist continuing Jake and Nathan’s story, nor do I blame the movie. The two are great characters, Jake especially (his character alone piques my interest in the predecessor even more). I feel it would be redundant to go into the details of their characters as that’s probably been established in the first film. Here, though, they’re frequently at wits end: Jake is rebellious and off-the-chain, while Nathan runs a tight ship by the books, by the numbers. Though they don’t seem to like each other, there’s a deep mutual respect that’s warming to watch, especially in the film’s third act.

Which brings me to my other praise. As lesser-quality as the other battle sequences are, the climactic third act is actually pretty entertaining – at least by comparison. Granted, I’ve never been a big fan of large-scale battles between otherworldly colossuses, but it was still pretty entertaining to see wanton destruction here. Though reminiscent of something like Transformers, it’s at least a lot more in-control here (this scene, specifically). Unfortunately, this final act ends all too quickly on a borderline insultingly hand-wave resolution. It ends in that “wait – it’s over already?” kind of way.

As lukewarm as Pacific Rim: Uprising was, it at least wasn’t a slog and was entertaining from time to time. It’s probably not the sequel that Pacific Rim fans deserve, and the money to pay for the ticket may not be best spent here, but it won’t be a complete waste. At the end of the day, though, it just kind of came and went, but I could feel that it wanted to be a solid sequel (perhaps there was some sort of snafu with the production company). There is a passionate heart pulsating throughout Pacific Rim: Uprising, but it was just too weak a pulse.


1 comment:

  1. Interesting to see a review from someone who hasn't seen the first movie. That's atypical. But your point is valid -- the movie probably should be able to stand on its pen more than the way you've described... ultimately, you've confirmed a suspicion I had about this movie: this world didn't have much going for it outside the interesting (i.e. stupidly entertaining) premise of monsters vs mechas -- and that was contained in the first movie. THAT movie was entertaining, you should give it a whirl. Not that it didn't have it's plot holes, but hey. It's originality as a universe helped it in comparison.

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