PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING (2018) Review
Directed by Steven S. DeKnight
It wasn’t good news when Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro isn’t going to return and direct the sequel of 2013’s better than most blockbusters “Pacific Rim.” But with his name still attached as the producer of the film, I thought, maybe we should still give it a try.
What the trailer presented was a more colorful world, more colorful than what its predecessor built, even the treatment of the film was changed. It shifted from something serious to something lighter, that it feels so different than the first one.
Pacific Rim: Uprising tells the story 10 years after the events in the first film, the death of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) and the destruction of The Breach or where the Kaijus came from. New characters are introduced starting with Jake Pentecost, the son of Stacker, who’s done with everything that has to do with the Jaegers but he can’t escape his fate, bringing him back to the legacy of his father, to protect mankind from Kaijus.
The film is fast-paced. Too fast-paced there’s a lot going on, you’re unable to put your focus on what and who to follow. It feels a different world, far different from the first Pacific Rim. Though it might be the intention of the production, I kinda miss the old one. It’s not a bad decision, it’s just too mainstream that some of the things we loved about the first one was forgotten and was replaced by something generic.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is a decent pastime, it could pass as something worthy of your time and money. But it definitely lacks soul, the element that makes the audience root for something, feel for its characters. It feeds you a lot of action sequences, a lot of character play to enjoy, but there’s just something missing,
3 OUT OF 5 STARS
“Pacific Rim: Uprising” opens in Philippine cinemas March 31, Black Saturday from UIP Philippines, distributed by Columbia Pictures. Also available in IMAX. Rated PG by the MTRCB.