Review: Pacific Rim Uprising

I watched this film immediately after Pacific Rim. In hindsight maybe I should have waited a while. I might have been able to enjoy it better if the first one wasn't so fresh in my mind.

Pacific Rim Uprising (sometimes punctuated as Pacific Rim: Uprising) is the 2018 sequel to Pacific Rim. It has a new director and new characters, two things that nine times out of ten mark a decrease in quality.

I only recognised one of the new actors:

John Boyega (Finn in Star Wars) as Jake

The film is set ten years after the first one. The Kaiju are gone, and the Jaegars are going to be replaced by drones. Unfortunately it turns out that (SPOILER!) Newt of all people has become a traitor and is working with the Precursors. Yes, you read that right. No, it doesn't make much more sense in the film. Cue Kaiju going on the rampage and Jaegars fighting them again.

It's a struggle to find anything good to say about this film. The special effects were impressive, but as for the plot...

Everything that made the first film good is sadly missing. No sign of Raleigh, Mako unceremoniously killed off, a collection of uninteresting new characters, far too many subplots, and a dearth of Kaiju-Jaegar battles. I watched the first film precisely because I wanted to see giant robots fighting giant monsters, and this film only has one battle in the whole thing! A fairly long battle, yes, but it's still not enough. As for Mako's aforementioned fate, few fictional deaths have been more pointless or more infuriating 😠

Sequels have a depressing tendency to be underwhelming. This is one of the most underwhelming ones I've ever seen.

Is it available online?: Not as far I know.

Rating: 4/10