'Pacific Rim: Uprising' review - Sit back and enjoy a robot mayhem movie better than 'Transformers'

Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising

Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Burn Gorman, Charlie Day, Tian Jing, Rinko Kikuchi, and Jin Zhang.

Director: Steven S. DeKnight

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi

Duration: 1 hr 51 min

Critic's Ratings: ** 1/2

Story:

Ten years after the war against Kaijus (the first film), Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) is living in the shadow of his father, heroic apocalypse saviour, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba). The street-smart man wants to live his life selling Jaegar parts on the black market. But an arrest brings him back to where he started and puts him in charge of young cadets at the Jaeger pilot programme with his sister/mentor Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) and pal Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood). The Kaijus return and Jake realises he now needs to mentor a new generation of fighters and save the world.

Review:

Pacific Rim: Uprising shades the grim nature of its predecessor and instead of being a survivor drama — dragging the story into lethargic realms — becomes a fun chronicle of beating up monsters with giant machines, updated with funky inventions and spunky pilots.

The improved Jaegers have gravity slings, electric whips, plasma swords, gigantic guns, and laser batons. They fight improved Kaijus and cause property destruction of astronomical heights. The action scenes are sleek. They appear at regular intervals so that viewers are not bored. 

To remind the viewers that it's not all about the CGI mastery (which BTW shames the Transformers franchise when it comes to levels of destruction) and there are humans involved, the story throws some light on the bond between Mako and Jake. Jake's mentoring scenes with Amara feature funny zingers. Nate dismisses Jake's outsider perspective about the pilot programme but, eventually, their bromance wins out and they stand united against the Kaiju invasion.

The story hints at the perils of automating war weapons. It also points fingers at the drone situation being dealt with all over the world these days. But it is still shallow enough to not prompt deep thoughts.

The movie's brighter palette is a big contribution, taking this installment of Pacific Rim a notch above the first.