Monday 9 April 2018

Movie review: Pacific Rim Uprising

*walks out of a movie theater, but not in a very good mood*

...

They F***ed it up...!


Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my movie review.

Kaijus and Giant Robots...   They're like peanut butter and jelly, or even guns and sword of awesomeness.

Its no surprising that making a combination with them is like teenagers dream of epic war, i mean, im one of those kids who loves to watching mechas vs monsters.

Why? Because it was originated in Japan with "Mazinger Z", which it created a genre of giant robots that makes a lot of intention of other franchise like Gundam and Super Sentai (aka Power Rangers in America). For Kaijus, i already talked about that i love the genre, especially with Godzilla.

But of course, if you wanna make a combination, it will be like a giant war, the most famous example is "Neon Genesis Evangelion", a anime where students takes their mechas to stop the aliens, and it became worldwide popularity of the genre. Unless in America likes to make their own.

"Pacific Rim Uprising" is a 2018 sci-fi Mecha vs Kaiju film was written/directed by Steven S. DeKnight, produced by Cale Boyter, Guillermo del Toro and John Boyega and written by 
Emily Carmichael and T.S. Nowlin (though they're other people involve the movie, but i don't wanna take it too long like turning my review into Wiki).

From five years ago, i remembered watching "Pacific Rim", which i find the movie itself is pretty damn good with Jaegers design and damn cool battle. Despite of under-performed Box-office, but it received a good review for the genre. Though i like the movie, but i didn't the concept where the character has to co-op with other to control a Mecha, which i like one seat pilot like some franchise in Japan.

And since the movie was fun to watch, they decided to make a sequel some of original casts returns and del Toro returns as a producer, but also bring a new cast, including Finn from Star Wars sequel trilogy. 

But this time, they made a film that it looks like a potential, but in reality, it turned out to be a big disappointment that its desperate for entertain and money...!

Well, lets find out.

The Story
For starting, it picks up 10 years after the first movie, where our new main hero named "Jake Pentecost" (the son of Stacker Pentecost from the first movie) lives as a scavenger for various parts of Jaegers, despite he's tracking at teenage enthusiast named Amara Namani. But they got arrested by a Jaeger of Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. As a result, Jake has a choice either he stay in prison, or becoming a mentor of Amara. However, when they arrive at China where Jake and Nate in "Gypsy Danger", they witnessed an evil Jaeger code-named "Obsidian Fury" for rampage, which some say the Kaijus is coming back for mutation.

Though the story is pretty good for the new idea of Kaijus, but sadly, it was just the beginning, which all i know is that they focus outside of action, but more characters and what's behind of Kaijus, which it sorta make sense, but i felt that the main plot of saving the world from new rise of Kaiju is probably the waste of time for poor direction and the writing. Speaking of the writing, they even try to include a humor, but oh god...   They're bad, like very, very bad...  Its as if they're trying so Damn hard to make attention to laugh, but in reality, it didn't make me laugh that i ask a question, but other times, completely unnecessary, it feels like it was written by a 12 year old boy who's overly obsessed of the internet. I mean, MCU has a better humors than this crap! And don't even give me started for the third act, because it has the dumbest thing i've ever heard that it has a stupid plot twist that makes M. Night Shyamalan looks jealous, but i don't wanna spoil it...!

The story is painfully average, due to the fact that the direction and the writing is just terrible...

The production
Despite that the writing is dumb down, but at least the presentation of this movie may look potential, but like i said, it wasn't.

But to be fair, they did a great work for their futuristic designs. Unlike the previous film that its dark, here it goes lighter and kinda colorful. The background with a filming location looks nice, even though this movie was done in Australia. It looks cool of future location of China, Australia and even Japan. The only good parts of this movie, is the designs of Jaegers and Kaijus. Though the Kaijus are almost like an upgrade from previous and others are pretty new that i find pretty cool and kinda scary. But the Jaegers are no exception, because they look pretty damn cool for their designs and their weapons, but the one who's returned is "Gypsy Danger", which it looks like it was upgraded, but i like the new one, with sword and Telekinetic-like power. But the problem is that, "Graphics aren't everything", its probably a keywords to describe the movie, mainly because they like to showing off for the designs, locations and visuals, its the story, writing, direction and maybe characters makes the movie, not a desperate intention to showing off a cool looking visuals, much like video games. I mean, its almost we like to talking about the movie visuals on Art Gallery. Again, talk about desperate to showing it for potential...

The presentation of this movie looks pretty cool, but it was only the beginning that its more like tease of "Gwaphiks R Amayzing!!!11!1!!!". Like seriously, we want the meaning of this movie.

The characters
Though its nice that they brought back the characters from the previous movie, while the new ones are rather mixed bag.

For starters, Nate Lambert (played by Scott Eastwood), which despite he's still a pilot, but he's sorta like a commander for the pilots and some prisoners on Pan-Pacific Defense Corps, Dr. Newt Geiszler (played by Charlie Day) who's a "everyman", flawed and kinda arrogant scientist for studying Kaiju, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (played by Burn Gorman) who's a "Tweed-wearing" English scientist for also studies and Mako Mori (played by Rinko Kikuchi) who's former co-pilot after being abandoned from Kaiju.

As for the new casts, im not sure they're useful or forgettable...

The most notable is Jake Pentecost (played by John Boyega, not only the same guy as Finn from Star Wars, but also is debut of producing movie), he's sorta start as a scavenger from the first act, until he became a new pilot of the corporation. But to be fair, i find him to be interesting, which is because of Boyega's role, he did a nice work.

While the rest aren't as memorable like Amara Namani (played by Cailee Spaeny, but don't give wrong, she did not bad job), who's pilot prison for scavenging which i find her ok,  but others like Liwen Shao (played by Jing Tian), Jules Reyes (played by Adria Arjona) and others.

Though the characters from the previous film is good to be back (except for some for a bad change, whether one was killed off or reveal from the third act), while the others that Boyega and Spaeny is not bad, but others aren't as useful our main heroes or not.

And now for my final opinion of this film.
Overall, Pacific Rim Uprising is easily the most disappointing sequel i've ever watch, with average story, poorly writing and direction, some lame characters (minus Boyega and Spaeny) and the jokes are terrible. While the production looks pretty cool to watching along the action scenes, but once again "Graphics aren't everything", its more like a D*** tease to show how "beautiful" it is, but all we care is the damn story. This movie is just nothing but a waste of our time of less than 2 hours and im pretty sure the box-office will never work like the previous film, but even worse, i mean i'd rather watching "Atlantic Rim" by "The Asylum". My favor is to never watch this movie to waste your time and money, just stick the first one even "Evangelion" series, this one is like 2 times better before Pacific Rim. (Even though i haven't watch "Neon Genesis Evangelion", yet...)

Im giving it a 4/10. I would've give 5 if they make a better direction and perhaps a character development, but no, it has none that i had to drop to 4.

*sigh*  Talk about a waste of potential...

Either way, so this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on Pateron.com/Blackevil915 for your big request.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

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