Pacific Rim 2

Pacific Rim 2 Uprising

(Contains some spoilers)

When the original Pacific Rim hit cinemas, audiences were divided right down the middle. There were those like myself who loved every second of its giant robot smashing Kaiju action, and there were those who saw it as a dumb stupid blockbuster. For me it was a project that succeeded primarily because of the care and love that director Guillermo del toro took in the production of the film. That was five years ago and with del toro gone, it was anybody's guess as to how the sequel would fare.

Pacific Rim Uprising is perhaps best described as being both one of the dumbest but also one of the most entnertaining blockbusters I've seen in a long time. The plot can best be described by the elements it fuses together from other films. Much like Independence Day 2 we start our story with the world having rebuilt from the events of the previous instalment. A new team of young pilots or rangers as they're called are being trained to pilot the Jaegars with John Boyegar aka Jake Pentecost mentoring the new team. For those of who remember the old 80s Transformers movie, Jake Pentecost is Hot Rod, a hot headed punk who has wasted a lot of his potential, then suddenly gets thrust into the mantle of leader as he tries to live up to the mantle of his predecessor in this case his father. From here the plot changes to Iron Man 2 with Charlie Day aka Newt aka Tony Stark, heading up a design team that's building a new pilot less drone system. Charlie day is brilliant in this as is his friend Burn Goreman aka Dr Hermann Gottlieb.

At this point it' worth noting that in 2016, China's Dalian Wanda Group bought Legendary for $3.5 billion. Legendary who owns the rights to Pacific Rim was swift to ramp up the Asian focus bringing in a Chinese company for the Drone plot headed up by Tian Jing who plays corporate buisness tycoon Liwen Shao. Liwen Shao is introduced side by side with Mako Mori, the character who she's there to replace. 

 From here it would be pointless to carry on pointing out the plot beats but suffice to say there's more than a hint of Evangelion, power rangers and Transformers among the influences.  I really can't fault the film visually; whilst I think Del Toro created a more nuanced film achieving more with less, Director Steven S DeKnight has created a stunning film that always feels like its slightly missing its mark. A lot of the time it feels like you're watching a really well made knock off rather than a sequel. For every joke that falls flat there's about a dozen unintentionally funny scenes and plenty of set pieces to keep you engaged. All of this makes for an incredibly difficult film to score. But I'm giving it 7.5/10. There's just not enough substance to give it anything higher but too much fun to score it any less. Also for those who are curious there are no post credit scenes and avoid the 3D.