The original Pacific Rim holds a special place in my heart. Directed by genius and long-overdue Oscar winner Guillermo Del Toro, it's gorgeous, thrilling, and singlehandedly dragged me out of a depressed funk by being exactly what I needed at that time. So, when it became clear Guillermo wasn't directing this one, I naturally got worried, and when the trailers made it look less impressive than the original, I got a bit more worried. Could former Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight tarnish my affection for the original by turning in a shoddy sequel? Hell, they could've even get Charlie Hunnam to reprise his role as Raliegh, clearly this will be a disaster!
As it turns out, I really shouldn't stress out about these kind of things.
Ten years after the end of the first film, the world is still rebuilding following mankind's apparent victory of the Kaiju. Societies have been built around the corpses of the giant beasts, with notable black markets still profiting, and the military defenders of Earth find themselves debating between continuing with human Jaeger pilots or allowing the mysterious Shao Corporation to privatize the industry and replace them with fully automated drones. Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of Idris Elba's Stacker, is forcibly drafted into the program to escape jail time, and alongside rival pilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood, who is clearly filling the role Raleigh would've played had Hunnam come back), must train a new team of pilots from all around the world in order to challenge the mysterious "rogue Jaeger" that threatens to tear the whole program down and bring back the Kaiju. If they don't succeed, the entire world could be at stake.
The first thing you need to get about Uprising is that it's not a thinking man's film. It's simplistic, oftentimes cliched, and clips along at a fairly quick pace. But it makes up for with a mix of sheer spectacle and solid performances across the board. Boyega, in particular, is excellent, playing Jake as a lovable, swaggering hotshot with a fragile side. In comparison to Raleigh, he's a much more compelling and interesting character to follow. Eastwood is...fine as Lambert, playing the usual stoic, hardass he plays in film like this. The recruits are all largely two-dimensional, never being much beyond recognizable archetypes (snarky Brit, stoic Russian, slapstick Indian, etc.) with the exception of Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny), an orphan that provides the film with it's central heart through her friendship with Jake. Spaeny and Boyega have a natural chemistry and bounce off each other in the scenes they share, making their storyline click especially well.
In terms of returning cast, Charlie Day and Burn Gorman are both great as Drs. Newton Geiszler and Herman Gottlieb, fitting back into the characters but adding some development onto them. Day, specifically, is even more fun in this one. Rinko Kukichi is good as Mako, if largely underused and relegated to a supporting role. It would've been nice to see her take part in one of the film's big battles.
In terms of the films visuals and style, DeKnight lacks Del Toro's sense of scale, with the Jaegers and Kaiju never quite feeling real in the same way they did in the first one. For instance, there's never a moment as breathtaking as Gipsy Danger stumbling onto the beach in the original, while the fact that the film is shot in broad daylight gives everything a plastic feeling. However, what he lacks in scale he makes up for with fluidity, with the film's numerous fight scenes feeling perfectly put together. Never do you feel lost in the same way one would during a Transformers film, with the fights between Gipsy Avenger and the rogue Jaeger being particularly fun. Ironically, the Jaeger v Jaeger fights are more interesting than the clashes with the Kaiju.
The plot, naturally, is fairly standard fare, outside of a villain twist that will probably prove divisive. (My friend group was split pretty much 50/50 on it, with defenders enjoying the role while detractors found it nonsensical and somewhat pandering.) There's laughs, emotional moments, and a fair amount of technobabble, but it all clicks so well you don't really mind.
Ultimately, is Uprising a great movie? Probably not. Is it a fun way to spend two hours and a worthy sequel to the original? Absolutely.
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