‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’
Director: Steven S. DeKnight
Starring: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Jing Tian, Rinko Kikuchi, Cailee Spaeny, Burn Gorman, Adria Arjona, Zhang Jin, Charlie Day
Rating: PG-13
3 (Out Of 5) Globes
Plot: Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) is the son of the legendary Jaeger pilot General Stacker (Idris Elba). He was previously a promising pilot himself, but Jake long ago abandoned his training and he has since turned to crime.
When a bizarre and even more destructive threat emerges, though, Jake returns to his Jaeger training, reuniting with his estranged sister Mako More (Rinko Kikuchi), his rival Lambert (Scott Eastwood) and 15-year-old hacker Amara (Cailee Spaeny).
The team faces a race against time to stop the enemy from destroying Earth, though, while they also have to overcome their inexperience and various setbacks along the way, too.
Review: Let it be known from the outset that “Pacific Rim: Uprising” is entirely predictable and even a little hackneyed, as it follows the same beats and action tropes that we have long become accustomed to.
But while its lack of genuine originality stops it from hitting great heights, the film always plays to its strengths, providing enough laughs and plenty of increasingly drastic spectacle to captivate.
Rather than feeling like a direct sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s original, “Uprising” actually feels more like a piece of fan fiction, though, as it incorporates numerous new weapons and concepts that are cool but don’t have the spark of creativity that the Mexican would have invariably brought to them.
The same can be said for everything else about the film. Because rather than startling or provoking, “Pacific Rim: Uprising” has its sights firmly set on being just a crowd pleaser. Thanks to a scene-stealing Charlie Day, and a gung-ho John Boyega, “Pacific Rim: Uprising” is indeed a fun dose of entertaining escapism. But nothing more.
