Almost five years after its predecessor, Pacific Rim: Uprising snuck into theaters with relatively little fanfare and minimal advertising. Uprising undoubtedly banks a lot of its success on the original flick’s status as an instant cult classic and, like the original, it relies heavily on clichés and action sequences, amounting to a terribly flawed, but relentlessly amusing two hours.
Uprising picks up ten years after its predecessor, with the world rebuilding after the Kaiju war that the heroes put an end to in the first film. However, many are still skeptical of this long peace and believe that the threat still looms. A militarized program has mobilized to train young Jaeger pilots (Jaegers are giant weaponized robots mankind built to battle the Kaiju) and continue research of the Kaiju and the ‘Precursors’ who sent them to destroy us. The story primarily follows two characters: Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the son of Idris Elba’s martyred Stacker Pentecost from the original, and Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny), a plucky, orphaned, teenage wunderkind who collects scraps to build her own mini-Jaeger. The two are (rather conveniently) pulled into the Jaeger program at exactly the right time for things to start heating up again.
The first Pacific Rim, directed by Guillermo Del Toro and written by Del Toro and Travis Beacham, was an indulgent, over-the-top, geek-magnet of a film that is a Hollywood love letter to Anime, old Japanese monster movies, and stylized American action flicks. It was easy to adore so long as you know not to take it seriously. The sequel has an entirely new creative team (though Del Toro still assists debut director Steven S. DeKnight as a producer) but it feels largely the same.
So much the same, in fact, that the story mirrors its predecessor’s a little too closely. Much like its 2013 counterpart, Uprising features a young male protagonist—formerly a rockstar Jaeger pilot, now in disgraced retirement—unwillingly called back to the field to address a new threat, even though he’s still mourning the death of a close relative years earlier. He forms a bond with a young girl orphaned by the Kaiju at a young age who must overcome her trauma to save the day.
The fact that this feels like the ‘same old song’ isn’t even this movie’s greatest sin. My experience of Pacific Rim: Uprising went something along the lines of this:
“Are they really not even going to mention the hero from the first movie?”
“So it’s been ten years and they still only have four Jaegers in the entire world?”
“Are a bunch of undisciplined teenagers really the only ones capable of operating this high tech machinery and saving the world?”
“Scientists have had a decade to figure out what the Kaiju’s plans were and a couple of pilots figured out their master plan in thirty freaking seconds, JUST IN TIME TO THWART TH—”
“—oh wait, hang on, that giant robot just punched that giant monster from another dimension in the face… Never mind; I’m okay with this.”
And that pretty much sums up why the Pacific Rim franchise is so pleasing to a lot of fans. The movie is a mess. You know it’s a mess going into it, but as long as you have a little bit of perspective, it’s not hard to enjoy yourself. Take a step back and put your brain on autopilot. Admit that this might be the closest America ever comes to producing a live action Voltron or Gundam Wing, and let your eyes do the feasting.
It is readily apparent at the end of Uprising that the producers are gunning for a third film. The huge plotline involving the Precursors is left hanging and nothing new was really added anyway. In some ways, this movie felt like a reintroduction of the initial concept, recycling many clichés to draw in a newer, larger audience. I understand the motivation for this—you can’t make the third film without ticket sales and you can’t sell tickets without reminding people that the first film existed—but it will undoubtedly be frustrating for fans who were expecting more plot advancement.
Pacific Rim’s chances for a trilogy seem slim right now. Though it was the first film to dethrone Black Panther’s five-week reign at the top of the Box Office charts, it was immediately unseated (and exiled to fifth place no less) by Ready Player One, a film which undoubtedly has some overlap in its audience, as both attract hardcore geek fandom. In its first week, Uprising only made less than half the amount it will need to break even. It has a greater chance of succeeding abroad, which is not surprising, as it generously caters to its Chinese fanbase.
If the trilogy is completed, I know I’ll be watching. Sure, this franchise has its flaws, and they made some creative decisions in this sequel that disappointed me, but on the whole, the positives outweighed the negatives, and I hope to eventually see these giant robots punching their way towards saving the earth once more, even if it takes another five years to do it.
