When it comes to the original Pacific Rim, I must admit that for as much as I worship at the altar of Guillermo del Toro, it’s a film that doesn’t necessarily rank in the top five del Toro joints whenever I’m prattling off my favorites. I enjoy it and Guillermo’s love of kaiju is evident in every single frame, but for me, Pacific Rim fell just a bit short in terms being an all-out home run. That being said, I wasn’t really sure what to expect for Pacific Rim Uprising, especially since there was a new co-writer/director, Steven S. DeKnight, at the helm, but the sequel really surprised me—and in a good way. Uprising is not only a lot of fun and endlessly entertaining, but it’s a fantastic showcase for John Boyega’s boundless charms and infectious charisma. Oh, and all the monsters and robot fights are pretty rad, too.
Pacific Rim Uprising takes place a decade after the events of its predecessor. The kaiju remain banished to their universe, and those who survived the great battle have been left to rebuild the planet. We’re introduced to Jake Pentecost (Boyega), the son of the heroic Stacker Pentecost (played by Idris Elba in the first Pacific Rim), who has lived with the weight of his father’s heroic sacrifices and chosen to blaze his own Jaeger-free path. But after a run-in with a teenage hacker named Amara (Cailee Spaeny) lands both of them in custody of the PPDC (the organization behind the Jaeger program), Jake is forced to embrace the life he shunned for so long, and becomes a trainer whose job is to prepare young recruits for any possible Kaiju attacks in the future. Which of course happens a lot sooner than anyone could have imagined, once three beastly behemoths are summoned, leaving Jake and the other pilots to deal with stopping the end of the world as we know it (much like his father did 10 years prior).
There are a lot of elements to Pacific Rim Uprising that I really enjoyed, including both Boyega's and Spaeny’s performances, with the latter acting as something of a fangirl of the Jaeger mythos, which is just absolutely grin-inducing, especially when you add in the fact that the universe first established in Pacific Rim opens up a bit more in some pretty nifty ways. If you’re thinking Uprising is just going to be the same rock ’em, sock ’em action we saw before, think again, because we get some new designs for the kaiju (which you can really get a better sense of in the sequel because of how well-lit the action scenes are), and the fights here feel a bit more fully formed in terms of their choreography. And for those of you who consider yourselves a fan of the first Pacific Rim, seeing folks like Charlie Day and Burn Gorman return for Uprising is immensely enjoyable as well.
Even though I really enjoyed myself thoroughly, I do recognize that there are some rough bits to Pacific Rim Uprising, including a rather formulaic script that nearly follows all the beats we’ve come to expect from big-budget action movies over the last several decades. The sequel is also stripped of a lot of the offbeat elements that we saw in del Toro’s original Pacific Rim, which is kind of a bummer, but there is a very weird subplot involving Day’s character that I think the Master of Horror would very much appreciate (and Day is a lot less “shouty” here, too, instead relying on a more sly comedic delivery). To some, these issues might be enough to trip up their experiences with Uprising, but I was too damn delighted by everything else to let these issues stifle my enjoyment.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Pacific Rim Uprising knows exactly the type of entertainment it wants to deliver—a larger-than-life science fiction-driven spectacle centered on giant, badass robots—and it does just that with a great sense of confidence. It’s also worth noting that Pacific Rim Uprising was made with pure affection for this world and with a tangible earnestness that comes through in every scene, and considering just how cruel the world can be lately, it's a welcome change of pace for me.
Movie Score: 3.5/5
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
