Like an induced coma, quieting the screaming voices of outrage beneath a layer of popcorn and child-like fascination with violence and giant robots...
So without further ado, this is my dissection of Pacific Rim: Uprising.
Pacific Rim was the Robots vs. Monsters thrill ride conjured by Guillermo Del Toro and Travis Beacham back in 2013, and critics were certainly mixed by it's results. A good deal liked the film, saying that it's premise was not one that was typically brought to film, and it had an outstanding visual style to back it up.
A lot of critics also hated it. Thought it was hokey acting that was overlooked thanks to impressive visuals. I personally thought that only some of the acting was a bit hokey, everyone else was alright.
One thing that most everyone agreed upon was that the movie was an action-packed ride for any who watched it. And unlike SOME movies with giant robots fighting, we could actually tell what the hell was going on when we saw it.
The only thing I could see that remained the same from the first movie to its sequel were only some of the original cast, some of the same robots, and dear sweet Guillermo Del Toro.., in a producer and Visual Advising role only.
And thank goodness for that. I didn't want to have to slam Guillermo for any of the many questionable decisions in this film's narrative. Which brings me to discussing the SPOILER-filled dissection of...
The Plot
Look, I get that action movies rarely try to hook you in with a compelling story, and this still isn't the case when it comes to this film. So me attacking the plot seems kinda trivial. But part of the fun of dissecting a piece of media is pointing out all their silly or absurd bits. These silly points need to be addressed and dissected, because SOMEone at the writing stage for this film thought it would help their story.
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| You WILL relate to my tragic backstory! |
The story takes place from the perspective of our protagonist: Jake Pentecost (played by John Boyega) son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Alba) from the last film. I forgot if they ever addressed in the first film whether or not Idris's character ever HAD a son, because either way they wrote one into the narrative to give us that "tragic backstory" right at the forefront. Oh, did I mention that he's a rebel? Who makes it a point that he is nothing like his father? Can you BE more cliche` than that? But I digress...
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| Man, everyone got WASTED at last night's party. Especially Gamera. |
Seriously, there is a full on explanation for how life is like in the more destroyed regions after the war. And that the most valuable thing in those places wasn't money... but food. They even manage to product place some OREOS to get the point across. This wouldn't have been weird if they didn't compare trading for good food to an average afternoon at Lil' John's mansion for about 3 minutes of screen time.
But enough about that, because you'll be doing a double take when you hear that people are somehow piloting rogue Jaegers (roboticus giganticus) around the world. Yeah, apparently people are just able to BUILD a 100 ft robot just about anywhere, Hell, it's so easy even a child could do it.
Oh ,you think I'm kidding? No. Sadly not.
Introducing our next main character, Amara Namani played by Cailee Spaeny, doing exactly that. She is roughly 13 or 15, and she just BUILT a damn robot. I can't really get over that. Even as I am sitting here, writing that statement.
The film doesn't indicate whether or not she had help building the robot (which I might add is roughly a little bigger than my freakin' house) so we're left to assume that she built it by herself.
It was at this point in my viewing of the film, that I began outlining a "Questions" section on my little notepad. Whenever something unexplained or inconsistent to the first film came up, I just had to stop myself and ask "what? how?" in that order.
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| Seriously, how easy is it to build a giant robot these days?? |
For instance:
1. How DID she build that 50 ft robot?
2. How did she build it in a warehouse?
3. How did she get it stand up if it had no power?
4. How did she attach each of the robots parts, much less the armor and internal systems?
5. Is she a genius? The film doesn't do much to establish she's a genius, even with her tragic backstory revealed. So how did she learn to build a goddamn robot??
6. Are there rogue Jaegers running around because they made the schematics to building them public domain?
7.Or was it a wikileaks scenario and some ass-clown from within just dumped the schematics online??
8. How can you be thug-life about trading food for monster parts?!?!
ETC.??
And this was just within the first 10 minutes of the film.
Suffice it to say, I had a lot of questions by the end of the movie.
Our protagonist Jake, and the kid sidekick Amara (yep, basically her role in this film), get roped into joining into the recruitment and Jaeger pilot training program. Ironically, this program itself is under threat since a new Chinese drone tech company is threatening to put the Jaeger pilots out of work. In other words, they DID go with a "machines took our jobs" commentary for this film. However, a rogue Jaeger kills off one of the cooler characters from the last film, and our film's major conflict is underway.
Later on in the film, it's revealed that the aliens/precursors from the last film have been working behind the scenes to bring open the rift between our world and theirs so they can send more kaiju to destroy our world. A huge battle ensues and perhaps the most impressive scenes occurs, where we get an open love letter to the kaiju monster movie genre with an all out Robot vs Monster battle in Tokyo, Japan. Naturally, our heroes are victorious, the kaijus are destroyed, and there is an open hint at a future sequel wherein we take the battle to the precursors directly. But again, not atypical to this kind of genre.
In the humble opinion of this writer, the movie does its job. It's an action filled giant monster fight, with plenty of impressive visuals that keep the audience entertained. But is it actually watchable? Well, if you want to know about the rest of the film, first thing we should examine is...
The Acting
In my opinion, the acting quality was about the same as the last film. Just a bit hokey and over-the-top, with only some of the actors genuinely giving it their best.
Two characters I wasn't super thrilled to see come back to the film were Dr. Newton "Newt" Geiszler and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (played by Charlie Day and Burn Goman respectively). The reason primarily was because they were the comedic relief in the first film, and I thought for a moment that they were here again to reprise their C3PO and R2D2 routine. Without spoiling too much, I was wrong in my assumption.
The other actors, including our main stars, give a decent performance, but there appears to be something lacking.
And no, it's not Ellen Mclain. She's the highlight of the film IMHO.
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| Glados returns to voice the AI in this film in her usual Passive-Agressive fashion |
Perhaps it's the number of younger actors on screen, but in this film it's just a little more underwhelming. There thankfully is no distracting romantic love interest in this film, (kinda), but there is a possibility that there would be a potential love story in the sequel. All in all, not superb acting but not terribly cringe-worthy. However, I cannot say the same for the cinematography.
The Cinematography
Let's talk about camera tilt, and it's role in this movie. Whenever the camera isn't being handheld, sweeping through on gorgeous single-tracking shots, there is a recurring tilt that slithers it's way into the movie. Almost consistently, shots are tilted whenever there is an action scene or when the action is at it's height. I can understand the purpose of tilting the camera when we see inside the Jaeger cockpit, since it may be trying to convey the sense of a giant moving robot with less than stable ground. Sure, okay.
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| Even the promotional posters are tilted. What gives? |
But why do we keep bringing it back? The camera just gets weird at points like the cameraman got drunk before filming. I don't recall this much camera tilt in the first film either.
Perhaps this is just a personal gripe, but we can balance out our shots before we start rolling the camera. Just saying.
The Set Design
Honestly, this was perhaps the most disappointing part of this film. In the first Pacific Rim, Guillermo made sure to design the sets with a certain aesthetic that is iconic of nearly all his films. In this film however, there is mostly just your generic scifi looking set pieces, most of which is CG in any case. I can't tell you how often I kept looking for some discernible or interesting in the set pieces but nothing ever stood out. That isn't to say that there was a lot of work put into these set pieces, but the style is nothing to write home about. It pretty much fits that futuristic military robot appearance. Again, it does it's job. Which is sad for me because Weta Workshop was involved in this film, and their props, costumes and set pieces are always impressive each time I see them. Not terribly so in this film I'm afraid.
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| This is the only online image of some of the set I could find and I almost mistook it for Star Trek. |
The Music
The score was about as impressive as the first film's score, but it lacked the first film's main theme until the near the climax. This was mildly annoying, but if anything the soundtrack did what it needed to. Not really much to comment about the score but that it is sort of lackluster when compared to its predecessor.
The Results
The ultimate question. Is it worth seeing? Well, yes and no. If you're out on the town with your friends or roommates, it's a good enough action film that it can get everyone talking. But the price of admission? Maybe not. It's not a stellar movie, but it does get the adrenaline going. Is it an upgrade from it's predecessor? Kinda. I mean there are certainly more robot battles than the first, which is always nice, but it doesn't really add anything new aside from expanding your "WOW factor."
It may get nominated for next year's Academy Awards for Best VFX, but ultimately that's all it really is. A visual ride through the cockpit of a Jaeger.
If you're not keen on spending your hard earned cash at the theater, you can probably just wait for redbox or Netflix to make it available. I mean, they already released Annihilation to Netflix in the U.K, and I reviewed that sucker less than a month ago.
I wish I had more to say about this movie, but there wasn't any great complexity to it. Just a good ol' fashioned action flick. Go see it with your friends. Especially that one friend of yours who exclusively wants to see action or sci-fi flicks. This will really hit their soft spot.
Looking at you Steve.
Perhaps next week I will have a better review in store. One about dogs. On an Island. Made of garbage. Maybe... if Wes Anderson gets off his Indie artist ass and makes good on that full release. Otherwise, y'all getting a different review next week. But I wonder what...?
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