PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING review - Pacified Rim

(Reviewed by Melody Werner)

Pacific Rim: Uprising is a 2018 film directed by Steven S. DeKnight (co-written by DeKnight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, plus T.S. Nowlin) and sequel to Guillermo Del Toro's phenomenal 2013 picture. Released by Lionsgate and Universal, it features John Boyega, Cailee Spaeny, Charlie Day, and apparently (according to things in places I have read) the world's very first actor who's a literal empty suit, Scott Eastwood. Now, I have a history with reviewing Pacific Rim--it was the first film I ever reviewed (that review kicked off P&F), then I rereviewed it a few years later when I had rewatched it over a dozen times and sharply felt I hadn't been so fair to it upon reflection--and now I'm reviewing its sequel. Huh. This is the part where I'm supposed to be saying how old I feel at 20, but I'd prefer to skip the rest of the preamble and get straight into tearing this piece of shit limb from limb. Strap yourselves in. This is going to be a long one... 

Pacific Rim boasted phenomenal production values as any Del Toro film does, and fortunately for Uprising it carries on in this tradition, even if it never once rises above the original in this regard--aside from something I will get into towards the end of this thinly veiled polemic. Now, this is where you know I'm not just reviewing this as a fanboy of the first: while I prefer the bulkier, overbearing, tank-like designs of its predecessor, I will admit that Uprising has an excuse for having much more streamlined, glossy character designs for the mechs in that they had ten years to eliminate any redundancies (even if this slimming down evidently didn't extend to the pilot suits and even if it takes away a lot of the special feeling and the character the mechs had). *sigh* At least the kaiju designs fare better. As I was looking at the Wikipedia article so I could get the names right, I saw that some critics apparently thought the action in this was good... I'm not gonna slam them or anything, but personally I didn't just enjoy the battles in the first because they looked cool. If that was the case, these would be fine since they do, on a superficial level, look cool. The problem is that, unlike its predecessor, Uprising fails to effectively establish who is in which mech, so you know who is getting turned to pulp by Godzilla-mitts. How am I supposed to care about your characters when they are in peril when you don't show me who the fuck is in real danger at any given moment? Criticize the original for not really developing the characters who died, but at least there you had an idea of who was getting the axe and when. Here... I legit couldn't tell 98% of the time. Lorne Balfe's music is largely perfunctory in comparison to the first's by Ramin Djawadi, and though I of course was nodding my head to the remix of the most iconic part of the old theme, I couldn't help but notice just how much its presence drew into focus Uprising's inferiority to its better.

I never like to flatout hate on media since I distanced myself from the "rage reviewer" persona ages ago, but something I like even less is the idea of being dishonest: this story is absolutely, positively, terrible. It ought to be a sin and a crime to write something this god awful. The first twenty minutes or so drag on forever, with nothing compelling occurring--scratch that, a better made film could've easily made that subject matter interesting--nothing that was /made/ compelling occurring. Then we see the coolest character from the first die in a very dumb way, all so the film can have the gall to lean up beside you with a Cheshire grin and say "Hey, bet you don't know what caused THAT to happen, huh?" No, movie, you couldn't have been more obvious when the last scene that character was in had them talking about something which would've made them an obvious target for an obvious entity. "Oh. Well then... wait ten minutes or whatever for these dumbfuck characters to figure it out." Gee, thanks. The remainder of the film after that has no idea what made the first one work so well, as it just hurtles toward one climactic fight scene that ticks every box in the checklist good sequels follow after another--all for nothing, when the execution of these evolutions rings hollow. For example, the final fight has three kaijus merging into one. Sounds cool as shit, right? It should, but there is no build-up for this. It's like a fill-in episode of the Power Rangers where the baddie gets creamed in two seconds, so they just warp into this being that should be literally unstoppable, that has big "I cannot be killed under any circumstances" red lights flashing--all so it can be killed in a single strike in the most unsatisfying means imaginable. Gah. The evil Jaeger (!!!) fares no better, who's in there for a few slapped together fight scenes before it gets dispatched for the remainder of the picture. PR:U also appears to have sheer contempt in its audience, sledgehammering story beats into your head in the most completely unnecessary way imaginable.

If you thought the characters of Pacific Rim were surprisingly well rendered for a film of its type, then Uprising is to be a maaaaaaassssssiiiiive, three-kaijus-morphed-into-one-sized disappointment. Boyega and Spaeny's characters sound pretty cool on paper (a disgraced pilot and a child pilot), but the story does nothing with them. Every other character seems to just be there to be there, with the worst offender being Eastwood's "character," who the script has gotten the wrong impression of and decided to pretend is someone we're supposed to care about. Seriously, this literal empty suit (and I will condemn anyone who dares suggest otherwise) just pops up and spouts dumb platitudes for like two minutes every once and a while, but then there are these scenes at the end where we're supposed to be rooting for him. Oh, and remember how there were pop culture news stories about how Pacific Rim failed the Bechdel Test but no one really cared because Mako Mori was actually a three dimensional person who was easy to empathize with and follow? I'm convinced that the Borg that wrote this looked at those stories and said, "Ohhhhh, you nonexistent people who didn't care about the first one failing that dumb internet test no one cares about, I am going to get you!!1!" and so plotted to create one of the worst female characters in cinema history (played by Adria Arjona), whose sole purpose in the film is to create an entirely pointless love triangle between her, Boyega, and Eastwood. Nice job, Borg, you really owned all those normal people who were cheering on this franchise for having good, thoughtful female leads they cared about in a film series where you would expect this exact kinda pointless objectification. Then there's the main antagonist, who I could write an entire treatise on for how bad he is. So he's a returning comedy relief character (take a wild guess on which one. I totally didn't list the actor in the preface as one of the leads) from the first who becomes a double agent for the kaijus. Sounds cool, right? Yeah, it's a cool /idea/. Too bad the reason for why makes less than zero sense when you think about it for anything north of two seconds and the fact that, despite being mind-controlled, he still has the same exact personality he had in the first one because this guy's a charismatic actor and flashy villains are fun. Never mind the fact that it is incredibly dumb and is in no way a natural progression from the first film! Oh, and don't get me started on this bloodydamn trash dialogue. Characters speak the most unnaturalistic, ridiculous shite you can imagine. A whole lot of intentional self-awareness which falls flat because no one talks like this. No one talks like this, Borg!

(disclaimer: when I say "Borg," I am not attempting to attack or dehumanize the writers personally (who I am sure are all wonderful people if you get to know them), as that sort of behavior is forever uncalled for. The intent is to assail the fact that this has so many people working on the script that it feels as though it has no singular, cohesive vision. So many story threads left loose; so many characters who have no point but are built up as though they do have one. This is the exact soulless shit I was talking about in my review of Bumblebee when it comes to Hollywood films. Please don't be a gobshite and go around attacking the writers or thinking they can never write a good film. Plenty of talents in film and elsewhere have off days before working on some wonderful passion project, and we have no idea if the issue had more to do with the studio, or the possible treatment of writers as a commodity that the studio figured could be thrown together and turn out something of quality (which would be wrong-headed on its face). If you go and attack any of these writers because they wrote a bad film script, go fuck yourself and stop reading this right the hell now.)

Pacific Rim was never really about the mechs and kaiju fights. Oh yeah, that was why it got made and a huge reason why the people who love it love it so dearly (I know it pushes all my right buttons). What made Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim, and not a million and one other macho man fighting evil monsters/aliens action movies, is that it actually snuck a message of international unity and cooperation into the kinda movie that the basement-dwelling people who hate those things would go and love the fuck out of, because the aesthetics of that film were so strong people didn't notice its underlying themes were handled so well. That's why, at the end of the film, all of the Jaegers were destroyed but you still had the cooperation between international bodies. The mechs, they were tertiary to the story's theme, a way of giving a vehicle for this positive globalist message (that's right, all you elitists who mocked those of us who enjoyed PR1 are the real dummies here (kidding)). Uprising looks at this thoughtful and interesting story lurking underneath and says, "What if we didn't have anything going on under the hood? All of those dumb shitheads who liked the first movie will totally go for it if we phone things in here."

You know your film is bad when the best, most artistically bold part about it is literally the closing credits. But that is the case with Pacific Rim: Uprising, which honestly does have some pretty nice closing credits. I just wish such artistry extended to the film itself, but at least I got to see some decent eyecandy after sitting through this dull hogwash. Universal, Legendary--give those lads and such raises if you even do those for people who aren't your worthless CEO's; they did a spectacular job.

Pacific Rim: Uprising is maybe the worst case scenario I can think of for a Pacific Rim sequel. It is undoubtedly a lazy hack job that has no respect for its predecessor. But it also has enough good ideas and lays the foundations for what could potentially be some cool shit in a future sequel. I would honestly prefer if they didn't yank my chain and just let me know that they weren't going to be giving a shit with any of the new ones, because I'm pretty sure that all of this will be more wasted potential given how Legendary is intent on treating its "writers room" as a personless conveyor belt that can be rearranged and removed at leisure. But I still hold out hope for whatever comes next with Pacific Rim--not out of brand loyalty, they already exhausted all of the good will the first had built up with this utter pile of red, raw anus (great job, guys. Too bad I totally rented this from the library so y'all fuckers aren't seeing a cent from exploiting my love of the first)--but because "Pacific Rim, if it was Star Trek" does sound pretty awesome in the right hands. What I'm basically saying is, Legendary. Guys. Just hire me and I will turn this ship around for your next one. I'm taking the piss, of course--Legendary doesn't want good writing, it wants a machine which spits out film scripts fast enough to build a yearly stream of films. So I'd have no interest in being part of such a dehumanizing and cruel venture, even if Pacific Rim is something I would love to put my name to at some point, if only I didn't have these things called a spine and a big mouth to make good use of it. Pacific Rim: Uprising is more than just a disappointing sequel, it represents the anathema to good filmmaking and good storytelling. And so, it gets a 3.5/10 from me.

Awful

Summary:

A dull and lifeless cash grab that has some great ideas, but no follow-through on any of them. Takes one of the best action films of all time (and I don't just say that to be hyperbolic) and shits all over what made it so great, while leaving nothing new to replace what's been lost. It's not funny, it's not epic, it's not interesting, it's not terrifying, it's not dramatic. It's just something you can watch in the background that won't eat your soul.