#he was so damn good in pacific rim he made the main character white guy look so god damn boring

[cirnogaming]

charlie day is an absolutely phenomenal actor who is afflicted with the curse of only appearing as the comedic relief

[minaminokyoko]

Pacific Rim: Uprising (A Spoilertastic Review)

This movie should be the ultimate lesson for Hollywood on why you shouldn’t just replace a director who has vision with someone who just wants to make a quick buck in a lazy sequel. My God, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this utterly annoyed by a sequel. I mean, late sequels have a serious tendency to suck for many reasons: hiring different writers/directors from the previous film, changing the tone, removing important characters and awkwardly jamming new ones in there, relying on boring sequel clichés, or misunderstanding the entire reason why the first movie was a hit. Pacific Rim wasn’t a mega-hit stateside—it did $101 million domestically and did much better in the foreign market with an additional $309 million—but it was easily a fan favorite. Even if I had the full story on what went down between Legendary Pictures and the delightfully talented Guillermo del Toro, there is no excuse why Pacific Rim Uprising is such a pathetic pile of nothing. With del Toro, we had some excellent world building, a basic understanding of the premise, a loose but still adequate story, and characters that were easy to remember and enjoy. We also had a fun cameo from the incomparable Ron Perlman, a fantastic score, and some truly imaginative fight sequences of the Jaegers vs. the kaiju. I’ve said before that I think PacRim is a good movie, not a great movie, only because I felt you could have simply removed Raleigh entirely and focused on Mako and Stacker instead since they were both ten times more interesting and easier to connect with on an emotional level. However, after seeing this nonsense, I have a whole new appreciation for the first film, because at least it told a goddamn story and its characters had personality traits and arcs. Uprising is honestly an affront to what the first film established, not only for retconning things with Stacker’s forgettable son, but just botching every single enjoyable element from the first film.

I’ll get right to the point—yes, the Jaeger/kaiju fights are the main draw for this franchise. Even though I’m going to list why this sequel is godawful, a lot of people really just want to see it for the big fight scenes and that’s all they might want to take away from any reviews. Well, I’m here to tell you, I still don’t think Uprising is worth your hard-earned cash, because it’s frankly a bait-and-switch. The trailer shows you a monstrous kaiju made of three other kaiju, and that sounds amazing, right? Well, it’s intentionally misleading. If you want the full story, check below the spoiler line.

Overall Grade: D

Pro:

-Seriously, the only positive thing to note about this entire film is that the fight scenes were at least adequate. Not good, not great, adequate. When the fights finally do happen, there’s plenty of smashing, and the idea of the kaiju melding into one huge kaiju was at least a nifty idea. It was easily the only thing about the trailer that got anyone’s blood moving and could have built any hype.  However, judging by the movie’s poor opening weekend, enough people could tell something was off about it.

Cons:

-The trailer is misleading. How? Well, there are no kaiju in this movie until the last fifteen minutes. Seriously. They pulled a Huntsman sequel on you guys—promising something that only appears at the end of the fucking movie. All other times, you are stuck with the bland protagonists training or trying to figure out how the rogue Jaeger attacked Sydney. IIRC, there’s only the fight of Gypsy Avenger vs. the rogue Jaeger and then the end with all of them fighting. There’s a brief chase sequence in the beginning with Bland White Child and Stacker-lite, but it’s barely five minutes long and it’s just them rolling away from the full sized Jaeger like Sonic the Hedgehog. Look, if that still excites you, hey, go see it. But to everyone else who doesn’t want to feel ripped off, I’m begging you to sit this one out for this and many other reasons I’m going to outline below. There are only kaiju at the end of the damn movie. It’s Godzilla 2014 all over again—a magnificent creature that is advertised heavily as being in the film, but isn’t actually in the damn thing.

-The dialogue is so painfully cliché that you will roll your eyes so many times they might eject from your skull. Jesus Christ. I swear, it’s like they had a checklist of every action movie cliché they could think of and they made sure to check off every single one. Every line of dialogue in this movie is a sickening cliché. There is not one original thought. Not. One. Every character is flat and some form of a lazy archetype. No one gets any development. It’s Michael Bay-levels of incompetent writing. The movie couldn’t have been any worse written than if there was a room of chimpanzees hammering away at the screenplay. It’s just plain embarrassing. Every moment there isn’t a kaiju smashing something or a Jaeger beating wholesale ass, you will be in massive amounts of pain.

-The fights are mediocre. Remember how carefully staged the fight scenes were in the first movie? Hell, most of the time we can list them off the top of our heads because those fights were so damn memorable. We had the opening montage, the Knifehead fight, the two kaiju vs. the Jaegers, Gypsy Danger vs. Otachi, and then the final brawl underwater at the Breach. Each fight was staged well and paced well throughout the film. You didn’t have to wait too long between fights during the film, and it also entertained you with smaller bits like Mako and Raleigh training or the flashback to Mako’s childhood with that scary crab kaiju. Uprising is a bottom-heavy film, much like the equally terrible Jurassic World (God, talk about another late sequel that entirely misses the fucking point of the original property.) The only difference is at least Jurassic World had enough sense to deliver a powerhouse ending to an utterly stupid film, and Uprising doesn’t. The fights don’t have clever staging, great music, or very much creativity to them. After suffering through two hours with these annoying paper cutout characters, you should deliver the best damn fights we’ve ever seen, but no, they’re just standard hacking and slashing. Punctuated by the intensely annoying, shrieking helium balloon shaped like Charlie Day shouting inane dialogue in his squeaky voice. The fights have zero weight, too, because no one has a character, so you don’t give a shit if they live or not during the fight either.

-Like many terrible sequels, they kill off a main lead from the previous film in order to give the new protagonist some pathetic kind of Mangst. If there is one thing I am sure of, it’s that most fans of the original movie are going to be LIVID they dragged the actress playing Mako all the way back on set just to kill her fifteen minutes in. It’s just insulting. Mako was the fan favorite from the first film. Seriously, she has most of the fandom in her back pocket, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the immediate backlash is because the movie’s disgusting use of Fridging the main female lead from the first movie to make way for Bland White Child and Stacker-lite. It’s possibly the most insulting thing about the entire sequel. Mako deserved better. I’d rather she was out of the movie entirely, like Raleigh mysteriously is, than for them to kill her in such a cheap, stupid way. What a waste of a good actress and a great character.

-Making Charlie Day the villain. Yes, because nothing is more intimidating than a tiny man with the voice of Bobcat Goldthwait spouting dialogue so corny you’d expect it from an Austin Powers movie. Are you kidding me? Look, I get it, Charlie Day is a fan favorite so of course they were going to bring him back, but what the actual fuck made you think he should be the bad guy? It’s weaksauce. It sounds like they were just bored and out of ideas for the villain, as if the fucking kaiju or the Precursors weren’t good enough somehow, and just slapped this idiotic role in his lap. It’s such a bad idea. I hated his character in the first film and wanted him removed entirely, but at least he served a purpose. Here, it’s just lip service. Anyone who liked him in the first one is going to be pissed off at this random turn of the character with no indication of changing him back.

-Thin, boring leads. Let me be clear: John Boyega is not to be blamed for any of why this movie is failing critically and financially. The kid is talented and sweet and I want to pinch his cheeks and feed him apple pie in my kitchen. But he couldn’t save this film because of that rancid excuse of a script. Boyega is a darling on screen in almost everything else, but here, he has nothing to work with. Stacker-lite is just a cobbled together mess of leftover script notes from Chris Pine’s portrayal of Captain Kirk in the Star Trek reboot. He has nothing going for him at all. No motivation, no skillset, no charm. This character is completely empty inside. Bland White Child is the exact same as well; basically just every Little Miss Badass/Underdog stereotype only done amazingly poorly. She has nothing to offer the audience and while she has slightly more motivation than Boyega’s character did, it doesn’t mean anything. Then we have Generic Good Looking White Guy Lead, because for fuck’s sake, it’s not like it’s 2018 and we aren’t tired of seeing him, Generic Latina “We couldn’t get Michelle Rodriguez to do this bullshit so here’s someone else instead” Tits and Ass (who made me even angrier because normally when they have the Hot Latina Military Lady, she gets at least ONE badass moment, but this chick seriously serves no fucking purpose and is relegated to the laziest Hot Girl/Potential Love Interest role of all fucking time), Generic Cadets Who are Carefully Ethnically Diverse (you are fooling NO ONE, sequel; if you’re gonna bother to make them diverse, GIVE THEM ACTUAL CHARACTERS FIRST), Kick Butt Asian Lady (seriously, why the fuck did you cast this lady and kill off Mako? It would make more sense if Mako was in this role, like maybe Raleigh died in the Jaeger and she wanted to make automated Jaegers so no one would ever lose their partner again, there, ah fixed it, you morons), and finally Returning Cast Member Who Looks Tired AF But Needed the Money. It is a headache spending two hours with these characters. You don’t care about any of them and they have nothing to offer you. They’re just constantly stumbling around bumping into things and spouting dialogue from 30 years ago.

If you can overlook all of those flaws for the promise of Jaeger vs. kaiju fighting, have at it. Everyone else, don’t bother. If you’re that curious, wait until this hits a premium channel. I’m extremely glad I saw it for free, because I’d have been pissed paying $10 for this lump of expired crab meat. Save your money and go buy another copy of the first movie.

[sleepy-hailey]

Pacific Rim: Uprising

So as some of you might know, I like giant monsters and I like writing stuff (in theory), so how about I try combining the two things. In like a tangible way, not like the Kumonga (giant spider from Godzilla series) fanfic I have been working on for well over a year that still is not halfway done.

I am going to give my short and spoiler-free thoughts here and then go into more depth under the cut.

I really liked it. I laughed out loud at some of the gags, my mouth hung agape during some of the action, I whispered excitedly to my girlfriend next to me who had her own adorably goofy grin throughout, my feels got poked here and there, and I left the theater really happy. It was not perfect by any means nor was it as good as the first, but I will honestly probably watch again while it is still in theaters once it goes discount.

Now for my detailed thoughts where I spoilerize the whole movie.

Having said that I liked it, the first thing I want to talk about is, from what I’ve seen, the biggest point of contention. They fridged Mako Mori. For those who don’t know, “fridging” is a short hand for “Women in Refrigerators” which is when a character, usually a woman, is killed or otherwise brought to dramatic harm for the narrative benefit of another character, generally used for making a guy sad and angry. What separates this from general tragedy in fiction is that usually the character whom the harm befalls was a character in their own right and what happens to them has nothing to do with them or their narrative.

Mako Mori was the deuteragonist, or second main character, of Pacific Rim 1. What made her different from just being a supporting character was that she had her own story entirely independently from the other main character, Raleigh. Her story was about how her family was killed in a kaiju attack, she was adopted by the legendary pilot Stacker Pentecost, she longed to become a pilot herself and strike back against the monsters that had taken so much from her and others and to prove to her adopted father that was as strong and capable as he. In Uprising she is killed in a helicopter crash to prevent her from delivering her negative views to a committee about deploying drone Jaegars. She is mourned briefly (but with incredible acting by John Boyega) and it’s revealed that her dying act was to send information that advances the plot one step.

This is a really crappy way to see a character out. This is right up there or worse than things like Tokyo S.O.S. where the entire previous movie was about building up the character of Akane only to shuffle her off at the start of the sequel for “Special Training in America”. This is worse than the Power Rangers’ peace conference they kept sending Rangers too. I mean, in the 2nd Mortal Kombat movie, they kill Johnny Cage in the first five minutes and THAT was better than Mako’s exit because at least he died doing things in his character, ya know, fighting the bad guy, and it raised the stakes by saying “oh this guy beat the tough guy in the previous movie but THIS tough guy killed him like nothing”. The other main character from the first, Raleigh, is just never seen nor is his fate brought up, THAT would have been preferable to this.

I’ve heard rumors that this was done for political reasons to get better box office in China. The first movie’s bad performance in China was largely blamed on the fact that it featured a Japanese woman protecting China, or so it is said. I’m not sure if I believe that was the actual motivation, but with the lousy killing of that Japanese woman and then having a Chinese woman go on to protect Japan, well, I see where the rumor is coming from at least.

So yeah, tl;dr, the way they killed Mako sucked and I don’t blame anyone if that’s a deal-breaker on their enjoyment of this movie. If they decide to bring her back as a cyborg or say that she survived the crash, but they put her in hiding for her protection, or whatever in Pacific Rim 3, I’m all for it. It would be dumb, but not as dumb as how they wrote her out in the first place.

All that out of the way, there was a lot I liked. The Mako thing puts a big “but” on my feelings, but I still liked it. There were other little issues I’ll talk about too, but none of them are comparable to the killing of Mako.

STUFF I LIKED! Jake Pentecost! I have yet to see John Boyega not be a delight to watch and this movie did not break that streak. His character was funny and charming in a dorky way. He also had to do most of the emotional lifting on this movie (with his dead disappointed dad and his newly dead sister and his shame at his past bad behaviors) and he carries that weight like a friggin champ. Also I really liked how they seemed to be leaning towards a OT3 with his copilot, whom he does call sexy and seems to have the most feelings about, and that engineer lady, who was just kinda there to make it less gay I guess.

The cadets! These kids, I may not remember all their names, but they brought a great feeling to the movie. I’m not gonna lie, I like kids’ stuff sometimes (a lot of the time depending on your definition of kids’ stuff) and kids in action/adventure is easy to fuck up. They brought in a lot of energy and the idea of “the younger generation” being able to step up and even being pushed to do so before it might be seen as appropriate due to a rapidly deteriorating situation is certainly relatable. Also they actually killed one of them as a way of saying “no, their youth does not guarantee their safety for the finale”. Also they used a giant robot to flip off a giant monster and I have to respect that.

Scrapper! Most the Jaegars in this movie felt more than a bit derivative of the ones from PR1, but that little girl was a delight. I liked the idea of a mini Jaegar able to run with one person and move into smaller areas faster. I loved how she rolled up into a little ball to preserve momentum and to protect the pilot during impacts. I loved her being used to do field maintenance on one of the bigger Jaegars in the finale. I just really feel that scrapper was an unsung hero of the movie.

Newt and Hermann! PRECIOUS GAY NERDS! If you watched PR1 and 2 and you actively deny that these two are in love, we are not friends any more (feelings of ambivalence are fine, but it won’t win you any points in my book). These two stole the show every single time they were on screen and that is impressive for a giant monster movie to make me actually more into the scientist characters than the pilots. I know some people were pissed about Newt being brainwashed by the Precursors, but it’s not like he was a willing ally. I mean, he was all but crying when he was strangling Hermann (who also seemed to be effing reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault and aaaaaaa I’m gonna cry). And honestly, I think giving the Precursors and the kaiju a human face and voice, and one as interesting as Newt’s, was a great idea. It actually made me hate the Precursors in a way beyond the generic “they’re trying to destroy the earth” way. If a third happens I want Newt to be struggling back and forth under their control. Also he and Hermann should kiss.

This does segue into my favorite complaint against most things by the way; it should have been gayer. I use this complaint so much that it’s basically a running joke with my friends, but I mean it every time. Newt and Hermann are in love. Their plot in the first movie was all about them coming together and how it made them better and helped them to aid in saving the world. In this movie, I don’t even know where to start, it’s just unambiguously a sad romance where two people’s lives split when they both know they’re happier together. Like even the people making the movie straight up say that, yeah, that’s intentional and it would have been explicit if the powers that be didn’t fear losing money by having gay stuff. Also there’s no way way Viktoriya’s hostility towards Amara didn’t stem from misplaced feelings of attraction, I honestly expected (hoped with my gay heart) that Vic would kiss Amara during the finale.

I liked the kaiju! THIS SHOULDN’T SURPRISE ANYONE! Now the three main kaiju that attack Japan, none of them really stood out too much to me other than one of them had a cool thing where their face opened up and one of them liked to dig I guess(?), but that wasn’t all we got. The Jaegar/Kaiju hybrids that attacked in mass were pretty effing cool, honestly with their color variation from white to kaiju blue glowy bits and weapons and yeah. Then we got the Ultra Kaiju that was a combination of the three big un’s that attack Japan, that thing was quite the friggin monster. It may seem like a silly thing, but a kaiju that is a giant to other giants always gets me, like, terrified if done right. Were any of them better than my girl Otachi from PR1? No, but I wouldn’t mind having toys of any of them on my desk either.

The action! I mean, duh, it’s an action movie, if you don’t like the action you’re not gonna have a good time. I can’t say it was better than PR1, but I CAN say it was better LIT than PR1 with all the colors of the kaiju and jaegars shining brilliantly and all their moves on clear display. And they did a damn Rider Punch from the atmosphere to kill the Ultra Kaiju. I even loved Newt and Hermann beating up the guards in the elevator in their feisty nerd way.

Oh yeah, the other thing I didn’t really like was the ending. Like the very ending after they Rider Punched the Ultra Kaiju to death and captured Possessed Newt. I get that they were trying to have a light moment much like the end of PR1, but Jake and Amara having a snowball fight right after a fight that left them both pretty banged up and one of the cadets dead, along with probably a lot of civilians, was just kinda weak and odd. And where the flip was Shao? She was instrumental in saving the world, you'd think they'd give her a parting scene/shot. Then came the sequel stinger and I just wasn’t feeling the idea of a movie where we invade the Anteverse. I mean, it might be cool, but it just made me think of a movie with humans running around in giant robots and stomping on aliens, but it being ok because it was us doing it to them this time.

So yeah, those are some of my thoughts on Pacific Rim: Uprising. I get why some people hated it or just didn’t care that much about it, but I enjoyed it even with it doing Mako dirty. See you in the drift, nerds!