#2018 movie reviews

[bridoesotherjunk]

Okay, so it's been a handful of days since I've seen Venom 3.. and I think I've finally got my thoughts together.

This review will have spoilers, so it will go under the cut.

these are all my opinions, so don't take my word as gospel or anything...

Anyone who knows me and my blog knows how much I've loved these movies since 2018, so to see me not ranting about the third Venom movie should be evidence enough how I feel.

I... don't feel like this was a satisfying conclusion to the Venom franchise. I really feel like there was so much more that could have been done, and should have been, instead of what we got.

I truly feel that introducing Knull into the story was a mistake. The first 2 films were so much smaller scale. Expanding all the way to the fucking symbiote god after only having done Carnage just felt like such a massive leap. And they really didn't do much with him anyway.

It felt like they included Knull because they were obligated to. Like Sony made them in order to have a weird spin off involving Knull trying to kill stuff. I don't know. He didn't do much besides tease future movies where he's the villain again. And that's kind of boring...

I will sound so narcissistic saying this, but I truly feel that the story I came up with, where the villains of Venom 3 are former Life Foundation employees angry at Eddie for ruining their lives, made way more sense. In terms of scale, you know? Much less "huge universal threat" and more of the small scale "threat to Eddie and Venom specifically" type story. Even Riot, being a threat to the Earth, was smaller scale than Knull. Knull is just too much. Too big. Too unfocused. It felt like too wide of a net. It felt generic, i hate to say it. It just felt like every other dumb ass gritty movie where the bad guy wants to destroy all life as we know it. (And quite frankly, he could have been taken out of the movie and not much would have changed. Venom and Eddie could have been hunted by the xenophages for any number of reasons.)

The part of the movie that I enjoyed most was the beginning. The part that felt like Venom. Where we saw Eddie and Venom working in sync to free those dogs. I loved that. I loved seeing how far the two of them have come and how well they work together. .. seeing their journey in a montage later? That felt... lackluster. After seeing them literally working together just an hour earlier in the movie, it felt kind of cheap. The way the story ended for these two didn't feel like a victory. It felt like the Avengers Endgame "well we gotta get rid of this character because their contract is up" situation.

The movie was definitely a fun time. I enjoyed myself watching it. But I was left feeling a sense of "That's it?" That I haven't felt since Avengers Endgame.

I'm happy that Tom Hardy got to do these movies. I absolutely will forever adore the first 2. They're fun, they're goofy, they're gay, and I love them. .. but this third one just... yeah. I'm disappointed.

I will always love Venom. That much is not going to change. I love these two gay losers and I'm so happy I got to have them in my life. They brought me so much joy, and so much brainrot, and I will miss the fuck out of them.

[sbblake]

Apostle (2018)

Aka, one of my very favorite horror movies <3

[the-masked-reviewer]

Bumblebee (2018) Review

potential spoilers ahead...

This movie feels like it took the fan-favorite character and decided to make a cash-grab with him. Which would be less frustrating if it made sense in the Transformers universe or with his characterization(Yes, I am arguing they characterized a robot wrong). But it doesn't.

This movie's story is like you gave someone the worst vague description of who Bumblebee is and the Transformers as a whole (specifically the cinematic timeline) and had them write a movie, without ever going in and making the continuity make sense in terms of timeline, story, and characterization. On top of all that the teenage romance is boring, unnecessary, and out of place.

The music is great, because it's set in the 80's so duh. But even knowing it's a reboot, and that it's about my favorite character, and that many seem to love it, this is easily my least favorite transformers movie by a landslide.

Before I actually cover those changes, it's important to know that months after the film came out, it was confirmed as a reboot (comicbook.com) information that at least to my knowledge was never mentioned. Meaning if you don't know this is an attempt to reboot the franchise before watching, like me, it's pretty fucking confusing and infuriating. It does also mean, you can basically ignore the next two paragraphs of me being annoyed if you want.

Starting with the changes to the overall timeline, the biggest, and most confusing, change is the time period and reason various Autobots come to Earth. I was meant to be paying attention to the teenage romance and the two Decepticons chasing Bee, but instead this change left me wondering who else was supposed to be on Earth in all the wrong ways, distracting me from the story.  Obviously the change of who's present and when, changes just about everything we previously knew about the universe. You'd think that would make it clear its a reboot or alternate universe, wouldn't you? If fucking only.

The characterization makes Bee out to be constantly scared and reserved. And while the reasoning of prequel and how supposedly you watch him grow confident is used to explain it, I hate it. By the end of the movie Bee is still this cowardly robot who shrunk into a ball because a human teenaged girl SORT OF yelled at him. Bumblebee is supposed to be a confident, cocky, fun protector, not a nervous wreck.

[rye-views]

Bumblebee (2018) dir. Travis Knight. 7.5/10

I wouldn't recommend this movie to my friends. I wouldn't rewatch this movie.

Off the bat, this movie feels more like catered to children. Idk how else to describe it. Like, it feels less serious, more cliche, and younger. Like we look like toys here instead of cool machines.

Charlie's electric bike is cool. Bumblebee interacting with Charlie for the first time is so cute. Memo's cute. Cute dog.

Mom saying she's a nurse was funny.

Bee and Charlie are giving me Kong and that girl.

[saturnitepumpkinhead]

I've watched 270+ horror films. Here are my favorites of all time.

Hell video, proudly served, posted late. There are more than 30 films on this video, and if you count the Saw Franchise as 9 movies in one entry, there's actually 44. I couldn't tag all the movies though :(

[fryesmoviereview]

Replicas - 2018

Keanu Reeves, Alice Eve, Thomas Middleditch, John Ortiz, Emjay Anthony, Emily Alyn Lind, Aria Lyric Leabu

Review: This movie was odd, it played with the line of being an okay movie, and being an shitty movie every few scenes, and unfortunately I think that the shit outweighed the good by the end. It's weird though, because I still kind of liked the movie, even though I know it wasn't good.

The movie is about a man played by Keanu Reeves who is a scientist working with trying to copy a human brain, and put it into a robot. While his friend, and coworker works with clones. Keanu's family died in an accident, and his friend and him try to bring them back by combining their two jobs and transferring his family's minds into clones of them.

The movie's logic is awful. Whether it be the fact that he tries to delete his daughter's memory from his other family members minds because they don't have enough cloning pods (even though he could have just cloned her after he did them) or the fact that they just steal a bunch of stuff from Keanu's workplace for almost a month without anyone asking any questions. Somehow cloning his wife takes the same amount of time as cloning his kids, even though it's deliberately mentioned that the longer they stay in the pods the older they get, so how would a 35-40 year old woman take as much time to clone as a 10 year old child? I could go on and on with the logical flaws in the movie.

The dialogue is atrocious. "You know I told you about the thing? Well their were some things I may have left out" another scene was Thomas Middleditch constantly talking about the clones "levels" and how they can be thrown off because their "levels" are really important, but he doesn't seem to elaborate any further about that.

The acting wasn't good. Keanu has some hits and misses when it comes to acting, and this is a 100% miss. Him trying to cry as he brings the bodies of his family members out of the water and onto the embankment was difficult to watch because of how cringey his state or at crying is. After they bring his family back, the wife seems like a robot.

When they put Keanu's mind into the robot, the CGI for the robot was very off. It was like the robot was running at a different frame rate then everyone else. This happens at the beginning of the movie as well.

The end plot twist doesn't make any sense to me. His boss, and the robot just tried killing each other over the fact he brought his family back, but they end up working together again anyway? Just seems really weird.

I don't know, the movie wasn't good, but for some reason I feel like I want to watch it again?

5.6/10

[yesterdanereviews]

Replicas (2018)

Film review #632

Director: Jeffrey Nachmanoff

SYNOPSIS: William Foster is a scientist working on a project to transfer the consciousness of a person into an android body. When he is involved in a car crash with his family and he emerges as the only survivor, he decides to bring them back using his research of transferring consciousness, combined with cloning research being undertaken by his colleague. With the experiment a success, Will's attempts to keep the secret from his family becomes ever more difficult, and when his employers find out about them, they see them as nothing more than experiments and test subjects, and Will must fight to save his family...

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Replicas is a 2018 sci-fi film. Starring Keanu Reeves as Will Foster, a scientist who is working on a project to transfer human consciousness into an android body. Unable to figure out the final part of the problem, he is on the verge of losing his funding. During a drive, Will and his family are involved in a car crash, which kills his wife and three children. This leads him to come to the decision to copy their consciousness and to enlist the help of his colleague Ed Whittle, who works in cloning, to create new bodies for him to upload their consciousness too. If you think that's an absolute mess of a premise, and a a bit of a stretch that the one guy who is working in uploading consciousness just so happens to have his own family killed in the most cliché car-crash-over-a-cliff-on-a-rainy-night. That his next step after dragging them out of the water is to think about cloning them new bodies is a bit of a stretch, and just makes him seen deeply unhinged, and not really the kind of guy you should be rooting for. I get that after such an event he is probably not thinking rationally, but the way he immediately comes to this decision without him ever having any success really just doesn't flow narratively. Thematically, the way the film just jumps from androids to cloning is a bit disjointed too: you could easily just pick one or the other, but here they're just put in a blender and thrown about all over the film, never approaching either subject with consideration or depth. You could certainly make a film that deals with the concepts of mind (consciousness) and body (cloning), which I think is maybe what the film is trying to do, but it nowhere near makes any kind of point on it.

Will erases the parts of his family's memories of the crash, so they don't remember, and because he only has three cloning pods and can't clone their youngest daughter, has to erase their memories of her as well. This is where the plot-holes start to really pile up, as Will has to wipe out all trace's of his Daughter's existence. He can perhaps erase the memory of his family members by deleting parts of their memory, but what about everyone else that knew her? Her school? There is no way he could have thought this was going to work, and the film barely addresses it. Again, we have to accept he is not exactly thinking rationally, but the fact that he does attempt to account for his family's absence by contacting their schools, employers etc. shows that he is aware of the problem. It just seems that the film ignores the huge task it opens up to itself with this.

Keanu Reeves is not the ideal lead for this sort of film: if you're not going to adequately dive into the philosophical issues surrounding cloning, consciousness, evading death and the like, then you need to be able to deliver an emotional impact and show the grief that the lead is going through having lost his family. Unfortunately, Reeves just cannot deliver that level of an emotional performance. Combined with his wholly illogical and unhinged behaviour, and it makes it difficult to root for him or understand what is going on in his head. The finale of the film has Will and his family on the run as the company Will works for wants his family eliminated, as they are experiments that have fulfilled their usefulness. This whole action sequence just feels unnecessary too; there's no build up to this, or any similar sequence earlier in the film, so it just comes out of nowhere. It tries to build up to something, then just...stops, as Will and the villain reach a deal, and everyone just lives happily ever after. After the absolute mess of the film and Will's absurd decisions, the fact that everything' ends well is perhaps the biggest leap of all. The CG is all really bad too: as the android moves about in such an awkward way there's no way you'll believe the actors are actually interacting with it.

[hannahwatcheshorror]

THE NUN (2018)

I wanted so badly to like this movie because the titular lady herself is very spooky, but the thing is, the film is flimsy from start to finish. Jump scares and some interesting acting/script choices await you in this beautiful if not creepy castle (and boy if this movie doesn’t drag). Please don’t ask me how this is connected to ANNABELLE  or THE CONJURING because it barely is. I really like Taissa Farmiga but this is not her strongest role.

⭐⭐

(Trigger Warning Suicide, Nuns)

The year is 1952 and we are in Romania (in which no vampires remain, thank you, King Luan). Our main characters are a hot priest (it’s always a hot priest), a hot nun (it’s always a hot nun), and a hot Frenchman (okay, that one was a surprise). They go to the castle to investigate a nuns suicide but things are really sketchy (like the blood that never dries). Upon further investigation the Abbey is wack as hell (or wack to hell) and there is a big boss mama nun walking around who doesn’t belong but is our main lady, our big baddie. This demon is very powerful, is able to kill a bunch of nuns but I guess not get their souls? I don’t fully get it.

The whole movie is just our three main characters dodging the main evil nun and whatever other apparitions she sends their way. At one point the priest is teleported into a sealed grave and needs to ring the plague bell to get out. The sister (the good nun) is trying to find which grave he is in but all the other bells on all the other graves started to ring… Wack. She eventually finds him and digs him out but still, wack. And I guess the sister daydreams that there are other sisters in the Abbey because all of them have been dead for a long time.

Frenchie uses a shotgun to take down a demon. Okay. Forget about the priest then, I guess, just, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” I snorted when I saw The Finger™. Seriously, they have a beacon shining off of the statue of Mary’s pointing finger and it is the most obvious thing I have ever seen in my life and the actors are all, “Woah, maybe this could be it?” Shenanigans out the wazoo. I couldn’t stop laughing at this reveal.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate that the relic of Jesus Christ's blood is in a cross shaped vial? Like, who came up with that? Who decided back in 1AD to make the first Jesus Christ Brand Cross merch? This is so silly I can hardly stand it! Remember in Indiana Jones when we find out the Holy Grail isn’t some beautiful chalice? And that makes sense because Jesus wasn’t a wealthy man, he didn’t do greed (no sins, ya dig?) but so many would fail the test because they assumed the Holy Grail would be the most stunning of all the glasses… But The Blood Of Christ is in the fanciest Easter Egg I have ever seen, boy, I’ll tell you. And then they have to use ALL of it to stop this critter? When before the knights sealed the thing away with a drop? They wasted all of the Jesus blood? What are we going to do during The Nun II? Wack.

[james-stark-the-writer]

a film about confronting abuse and abusers should never be this fucking boring and toothless. Leigh Whannell turns in his weakest script yet, and leaves Adam Robitel's sophomore feature to be sophomoric in more ways than one. this movie just looks and feels so generic in every one of its aspects, and it doesn't have the depth to understand or explore its main fucking theme, and even feels scared of depicting it with any real gravity.

My ★★ review of Insidious: The Last Key on Letterboxd

[adamwatchesmovies]

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

While it would be nice for every story to be wholly new and completely unpredictable, there’s something satisfying about a film that uses genre tropes this well. Crazy Rich Asians is the best romantic comedy we’ve seen in a long time. It’s glamorous, romantic, gorgeous, hilarious, smart and expertly directed.

Economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is travelling to Singapore with her boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding) for his best friend Colin’s wedding. There, she learns that Nick's family is among the richest in the country. Dismissed by many because they don’t believe she will fit in, Rachel becomes determined to prove them wrong.

I watched Crazy Rich Asians on a double-bill with Monster-in-Law because of the two pictures’ similarities. Basically, they share a plot but the execution makes them so different it’s like they have nothing in common. You can probably guess the story’s beats but there’s a twist to them that makes Crazy Rich Asians so much more. When you see Nick and Rachel together, they’re perfect. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. He’s wealthy but isn't insensitive to the problems of the common person and doesn't flaunt his riches. The performers have excellent chemistry. They’re both beautiful people. The camera doesn’t shy away from showing you Henry Golding without a shirt on and Constance Wu appears in several glamorous outfits that make her look like a princess. You like them as individuals. You like them even better as a couple. There’s no reason for Nick's mother, Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) to disapprove of them but she does. In her eyes, Rachel's upbringing means she will never fit in.

It’s not that Rachel grew up “poor” and that Nick didn’t. This film is deeper than that. Eleanor doesn’t approve because of the way Rachel was raised. Her parents were Chinese but she grew up in America. In Eleanor's eyes, Rachel could never understand the values the Young family hold so dearly. The opening scene shows Eleanor being discrimated against for being a foreigner. It generates sympathy for her. Seeing her judge Rachel later shows how much of a hypocrite she is.

You could dig deep into the film’s themes of old money vs. new money, of tradition and need to move away from them as well, the significance of the relationship between Astrid (Gemma Chan) and her husband, Michael (Pierre Png), or what it means to see a major theatrical release with an all-Asian cast, but ultimately, all of these are gravy. What you came for are some laughs and scenes of tenderness that will make your date want to hold your hand. That's what you get. The wedding Nick and Rachel attend is so beautiful and so glamorous. It radiates love so brightly it’ll bring tears to your eyes. It’s as romantic as attending a real-life wedding between two people you know are perfect for each other. You love seeing Nick and Rachel together. Seeing them having a great time with every luxury money can buy at their fingertips is rewarding.

There's so much going on with the cinematography, sets and costume designs you could watch the movie on mute and have a great time but then you’d be missing out on the comedy. Awkwafina (an actress who continues to impress with each film) delivers one big laugh after another. So does Ken Jeong - the funniest he’s been in years. Many of the side characters are quirky and memorable for their comedic values. The “serious” characterization is left to the main cast, with Eleanor coming off as particularly multi-faceted. She can afford to be. As in any fantasy, the leads have to be “perfect” to reinforce that anyone who doesn’t cheer for them is a villain.

Crazy Rich Asians is so enormously pleasing only those with a bone to pick against romantic comedies could dislike it. That said, I would agree with criticisms directed towards the conclusion. It’s a bit too long and does indulge a bit in some rom-com clichés. I'm mentioning this to show I'm not biased. The visuals, humor, drama and romance make Crazy Rich Asians a film you’ll be glad to return to over and over. It’s a terrific pick for date night. (August 7, 2020)

[kidsomeday]

Just finished watching Mandy (2018) and I absolutely loved it. My exactly kinda of dreamy bloody nightmare.

Some thoughts:

- I have never taken shrooms but I sort of imagine this is what a bad trip is like.

- Nic Cage is at his absolutely best unhinged and covered in blood.

-“What are you hunting?

“Jesus freaks.”

“Didn’t know they were in season.”

- Richard Blake was in one scene as The Chemist and it might be my favorite scene in the movie, absolutely stellar. There’s a tiger there for no reason except for fuck you, it’s cool, that’s why.

- Nic Cage using a heavy chain to murder someone while hunting for revenge officially makes this an infinitely better Ghostrider movie than Ghostrider.

- Are there actually demons? Strange gods? Other worlds? Or is it all drugs and visual mindfucks? Does it matter? (No.)

- The scene where they’re talking about planets all sleepy and curled up at night manages to capture the absolute best part of being with someone.

- The movie is sensual and gorgeous in the most horrific ways yet even in the scenes that are blatantly about sex it never feels like it’s attempting to be sexy, because of the circumstances. Brilliantly done.

- The scariest parts of this movie are the ways it could really happen.

- CHAINSAW FIGHT CHAINSAW FIGHT

- I want to find whoever did the lighting for this movie and kiss them on the mouth. (After looking at IMDB I’m going to assume it’s Director of Photography Benjamin Loeb.)

-CHEDDAR GOBLIN

[c0zmo-writes-archive]

Tonight I watched Malevolent with my sibling. I was originally going to watch Dashcam, but I read some warnings and noped out. I wish I could say better things about the movie, but here are my ratings:

General scariness: 6.5/10

Plot: 5/10

Characters: 6/10

Overall enjoyment: 5/10

Rating: 5.6/10

It was like someone took a bunch of ideas and threw them all together, then no one stopped to revise it and shoved those ideas into one and a half hours of content. In my opinion, it wasn’t a great movie. I loved Elliot though.

Probably doing The Bridge Curse tomorrow.

[firespirited]

Movie reviews: Tau (2018) and I am Mother (2019)

It's disappointing when people make beautiful films, hire brilliant actors then write their sentient AI with big logic flaws.

Now in Tau, this works because we know the tech guy over hyped his product, admits it's flawed and built Tau with severe limitations to his ability to self improve. The problem is that Tau's willingness to break with his programming doesn't quite follow a natural flow or consistent arc but unlocks at convenient plot times. It's the type of logical leap you can ignore because we've been told he's temperamental. Not sure why a music fan would want to know the dates and nationalities of composers when history and culture are still alien concepts though. Switching to poetry, now that made sense.

Overall: Fun, kept up the tension, didn't ogle the main character in a way that ever made it slimy despite her using her charms at times. The design is superb.

In I am Mother: (fun, sleek, well played but too big a logic hole for me to ignore) ending spoiled ahead:

"Personality stability" eugenics is still eugenics and a crap foundation to a new humanity. It takes a village and Skynet would know that if she'd studied any anthopology and sociology. Instead she's left a lone 18 year old with some Kant, a trolley problem selecting for self sacrifice and massive trauma to be the new Eve. Oh and she leaves her to raise a newborn with no one to talk to and no backup for the every three hour feeds and diaper changes. yep very logic, very studied, obviously written by a hands-off dad.

I mean I'm not ruling out a dystopia where a tech bro company who thought the humanities were useless slapped the label "sentient" on this biased, uncurious, non self correcting software and thought it was good enough to give it the directive to safeguard humanity - that's the only way this film's internal logic can work.

Still, I love a small cast drama and the three actresses deliver beautifully with what they've got. Worth the watch just to see the talent.

As for Maika Monroe in Tau: on the surface, it looks like she gets typecast but she brings a whole different character to each "final girl", they're brave in different ways and for different reasons.

Hopefully I'll get round to reviewing the fantastic Watcher and Significant Other where she also stars later this week. I found that double feature so elating, I wasn't sure I could be objective, now that i've seen a little more "mid"-ish films, it's a bit clearer what elevates those two (spoilers: it's about that real life perspective).

[utterlyvapid]

If there is a historical inaccuracy that destroys the film, it is not the usual points levied at it, that being the non-white actors scattered through the cast and the one figure written as being transgender with evidence to the fact. No, the issue is that this film wants you to fucking adore it’s central character. The story the film is telling is that of comparison. Elizabeth becomes less human, less alive, and eventually is in the mask of Queenship we know her as in portraiture. Mary never gives in to the men around her, and allows herself to be a “woman”, and thus loses her throne because of it. In many ways, it’s telling the same story Netflix’s ‘The Crown’ (2016-present) does…but that’s not the story here.

[scary-movies-on-netflix]

GWEN (2018)

Gwen is a young woman who lives on a farm in Wales with her mom and sister.  Dad has been sent off to war.  As she’s going home one day she sees that the family in a nearby house have all died of cholera!  Things pretty much go downhill from there:

Gwen hears someone poking around their house at night, and the next morning all of their sheep are dead!

Gwen goes to look at the house of the dead family, but her mom catches her and sends her home.  Gwen thinks that the local coal mine owner got the family sick so he could take their land.

Gwen’s mom gets sick.  The doctor, who works for the coal mine owner, loans her a bottle of “tonic wine” as medication.  Gwen sees her mom draining her own blood, which obviously isn’t helping her condition.  Gwen goes to market to try to earn enough money for more medicine, but no one wants to buy from her.  The doctor takes pity on her and gives her some more medicine, but on the way home the horse is spooked and runs off, breaking its leg.  Mom puts the horse out of its misery because Gwen is too distraught to do so.  Oh, also, the coal mine owner accuses Gwen of stealing the bottles of medicine.

Gwen’s mother is laid up in bed, and she confesses to Gwen that her father is dead.  We also see the coal mine owner looking at the house and handing a knife to a dude!  That night, Gwen burns her cross and follows her mother outside.  The dude appears and drags mom back inside, locking Gwen out.  The man tortures mother, but Gwen uses an axe to break down the door and get inside.  The man takes the axe and begins to choke out Gwen, and mother grabs his knife and stabs him once in the side and then slits his throat!  Mother sends Gwen and her sister away as a mob, led by the coal mine owner, approach.  The man slaps mother to the ground and burns her alive.  He instructs the mob to burn the house, and only one person, a young man who showed some interest in Gwen earlier, looks perturbed.

Gwen and her sister escape.  Little sister asks where they’re going, and Gwen says, “to find dad.”

This was marketed as folk horror, and there are certainly elements to that in this film.  The acting is sold.  Many shots are nicely composed, little works of art.  There’s a generally creepy atmosphere, along with a rising sense of dread.  There's maybe the slightest hint that maybe Gwen or her mother are witches who will visit righteous vengeance on the coal mine owner, but, alas, no. They are just poor people. Our frights aren’t supernatural.  They’re human.  At one point Gwen’s mother laments, “steal a sheep, and they’ll take your hand.  Steal a mountain, and they’ll make you a lord.”  This is another form of existential horror.  Our villain, the industrialist, the capitalist, the horror, is a person who has everything, but it still isn’t enough.

[yesterdanereviews]

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

Film review #626

Director: Steven S. DeKnight

SYNOPSIS: Ten years after the war of the Kaijus was won and the rift through which they came was sealed, pilot Jake Pentecost is living in ruined Los Angeles selling giant robot (Jaeger) parts. When he has a run-in with a girl named Amara who has been illegally building her own Jaeger from scrap parts, they are caught and given a chance to make up for their crimes: Jake is to train a new generation of pilots, and Amara is to join as a cadet. Both are put to the test however, as a new threat emerges...

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Pacific Rim: Uprising is a 2018 sci-fi film and the sequel to 2013's Pacific Rim. Set ten years after the vents of the first film, in which the rift through which the giant kaiju monsters was sealed, we see the hero of the first film Jake Pentecost living in the ruins of a Beverly Hills luxury home, as he narrates how the intervening ten years have led to people illegally building their own Jaegers (giant robots used to combat the alien kaiju), and an emerging black market for parts to do so. Jake runs into a young girl named Amara Nanami, who is secretly building such a Jaeger, and when the two of them are caught, are offered a deal to keep themselves out of trouble: Jake is brought back to the academy to train new recruits, and Amara joins as one of said recruits. While behind the scenes some suspicious activity with a company wants to use artificial drones to pilot the Jaegers leads to a new threat and the new recruits having to step up to save the world. The story splits itself into two as we follow both the protagonists doing slightly different things: there's absolutely no surprises here, and everything unfolds more or less how you would expect it to. There's just this overwhelming feeling that nobody really knew what to do with the story here: just re-opening the rift and fighting kaijus would have been a direct copy of the original and rendered the victory of the first film somewhat meaningless, so it's good they just didn't do that. The trouble is that what they did do is to half re-hash the story by returning to newcomers and training a different generation of pilots anyway. The new story regarding the use of drones to artificially pilot Jaegers is somewhat interesting, but is more or less blown away and discarded when the "real" threat emerges. All in all, it just feels directionless.

The story is obviously not what you're watching this film for I suppose: you want to see giant robots beating giant monsters, and you do get it...eventually. One of the big differences between this film and its predecessor is that the big fights take place during the day, whereas in the original it was all done in the dark and usually rain. This was one of the common critiques of the first film that you couldn't really see what was happening during the fights, so it's good that they actually revised that. There was something quite atmospheric about the night time fights, but I can see why they would choose to avoid that criticism entirely this time around. The characters have reasonably good chemistry, such as between Jake and Amara, but the development of their relationship is so predictable, and at the start of every scene between them you can work out how it's going to end up. The characters from the first film too don't really get that much development either, and due to the five year gap between films, I couldn't really remember who any of them were. There's just little effort to reconnect us to the characters or expand upon them.

Given that Guillermo del Toro stepped away from directing this film as he did the predecessor, it does suffer from his absence (he directed the Shape of Water instead, which won him multiple awards, so a good move on his part at least). The action scenes are decent and entertaining, but don't really have much flair. The Jaeger and Kaiju designs aren't memorable or leave an impression, and again, the effects are okay and solid enough, but don't stand out. Pacific Rim: Uprising fails to build upon its predecessor; stumbling around well-trodden story beats to try and distinguish itself form the original, but just never achieves that aim. Some of the characters have chemistry, but it's all done in such a cliché manner that you don't even need to see it; the predictability of all the dialogue is nauseating and feels like a waste of time. The fight scenes are entertaining enough, and are obviously what carry the film, but everything else is directionless and muddled. Overall, a lack of ideas overshadows the film, but like the original it's an okay action film. Although that said, you'll probably want to watch the original over this one, as it at least was self-contained and didn't have the pressure of re-treading old ground like the sequel has to.