Pacific Rim: Uprising - Boyega, Spaeny & DeKnight Rised Up

Certificate – 12A

Directed By – Steven S. DeKnight

Starring – John Boyega; Scott Eastwood; Cailee Spaeny; Jing Tian; Rinko Kikuchi; Adria Arjona; Charlie Day.

Running Time – 111 Minutes (1 Hour 51 Minutes)

★★★✩✩

IMAGE VIA UNIVERSAL

Pacific Rim was a surprising hit for a robot fighting monsters movie and a lot of that praise went to the director Guillermo del Toro, but fast forward five years without the now Oscar winner instead Steven S. DeKnight (Daredevil, Spartacus) steps in for his first feature film.

Ten years after the Kaiju War, Pacific Rim: Uprising follows Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of Stacker, making a living from selling Jaegar tech. After getting arrested he’s sent back to the Jaeger pilot program, under Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) with former BFF Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), with clever but scrappy scavenger Amara (Cailee Spaeny) as a new threat rises.

IMAGE VIA UNIVERSAL

There’s something childishly fun about watching giant robots battling and punishing giant monsters in the face and it follows that same here but this time it becomes more impressive and enjoyable.

If it wasn’t proofed previously, Boyega is a movie star and every ounce of his contagious charisma oozes out of the screen. Alongside the 26-year-old, Spaeny is a breakout star as the stubborn Amara and they have great chemistry together and hopefully, we see more of them together and that includes tech tycoon Shao Liew (Jing Tian).

IMAGE VIA UNIVERSAL

As for the rest of the cast, they’re there with the other teenagers having no character development what so ever and it’s a crime to Adria Arjona’s underused Jules. As for Eastwood, the fact he still gets cast in these franchise blockbusters is beyond me because he is so one-note as a military man.

The villain is incredibly plain and that goes for the film overall it’s bland but in some way, for its own benefit because you’re not watching this film for character depth and emotional story. Additionally, it does have more enjoyable action than anything the Transformers franchise has done.

IMAGE VIA UNIVERSAL

Finally, there are areas to improve but DeKnight brings freshness to the series especially in the way the kaiju return is imaginative and should return if there's a third film despite the weak villain.

Verdict

It’s robots vs monsters! That’s all you need to know and thank god for Boyega and Spaeny to bring cinematic presents with DeKnight doing a decent job as a first time big screen debut.