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Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), PG-13, ★★


I enjoyed Pacific Rim the first time I saw it as I recognized Guillermo Del Toro's vision and was enamored by all its visuals and its glory with just robots/monsters fighting each other. It was a great theatrical experience, but at the comfort of my own home, it was all right. If there are some movies that should be experienced on the big screen, Pacific Rim would be one of them. Yet, I was not clamoring for another Pacific Rim because I thought it would fall into the same trap of concentrating on only the visuals and not much on the characters nor its story like the Transformers series. The sequel does not delve into the same garbage like its second movie of the Transformers series but this sequel has nothing new to say but something fresh to behold. Unfortunately, it is in its overlong climax but even though I did not long for aspirin after that sequel let's say it was not as headache-inducing as that ridiculous sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

The movie opens ten years after the Battle of the Breach, in which humans have defeated the Kaiju with the help of Stacker (who was played by Idris Elba). His son, Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), does not see himself like his dad as he is a former Jaeger cadet dealing with parts exchanging for goods. Jake is in search of a very valuable Jaeger core, his tracker is picking it up. However, an orphan girl named Amara (Cailee Spaeny), has found the core but during a chase, they are found and kidnapped.

In the cell, Jake is called in to talk with Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), who is his adoptive sister and she gives him a choice to go to jail or to train Jaeger cadets. He chooses the latter. While in the training academy called the Hong Kong Shatterdome, he is met with Jake's co-pilot, Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), with whom he has had a strained working relationship with. A tech company wants to launch a drone program that is potentially going to threaten the Jaegers. But, later, when the drones are activated, after a terrible accident, they are taken over by Kaiju brains, who has been corrupted the Precursors.



My advice to the people who want to go see this is wait until the climactic fighting sequence between the Kaiju and the Jaegers to see the awesome visuals and action but you have to get through the un-thrilling build-up and the character introductions and the plot. To be honest, it is an unnecessary sequel that is basically a money-grabber. And, not many people that I know of were talking about the first Pacific Rim so I question the Universal executives that why this was green-lit in the first place. It is a formulaic script with familiar characters, accompanied by bad performances, that makes you wish for a potential sequel. And, I think this has more a chance, a slim chance, to get one than the awful Independence Day: Resurgence because the sequel ends in a familiar way.

Director Steven DeKnight actually does a good job of re-introducing the world. He just needed better characters and a better script and not join solely the visual aspects because they would want to re-introduce as bigger and louder and it is not better as a whole. John Boyega does got a good job acting in his role but I did not like his character as he represented yet again a formulaic maverick that comes off to become a jerk in the beginning but has to become his father. I did not like Scott Eastwood or Charlie Day or the other actors as they felt more lodged in than being a part of the movie experience. The movie is a bombastic joy-ride that does not persuade you to vomit, however, it is like being in the beginning of a roller-coaster and waiting for an hour and then it takes off without warning and then stops and you run away as fast as you can. It is sorely disappointing.

**


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