Just a warning, there's content here that could be considered spoilers. You've been warned.
I've always been one for the grandiose. Give me a movie with an over-the-top concept, and I'll be sold right then and there. And if I could call the concept of the movie "Pacific Rim" anything, it would be over-the-top. In the 2013 movie, have giant Godzilla-sized monsters attacking pacific coastal cities. Humanity's only hope was to fight back, and to do this, they built their own monsters: gigantic mechanized fighting robots piloted by two people.
This gave way to two hours and twelve minutes of pure adrenaline pumping action involving giant robots kicking the crap out of giant monsters using everything from large swords, to plasma cannons, to even an ocean freighter boat. Not to mention it was directed by my favorite director of all time, Guillermo Del Toro.
As someone who grew up watching shows like "Power Rangers," where most episodes ended in a climax of the heroes hopping into the giant robot "megazord" to fight an enlarged version of their monster foe, watching "Pacific Rim" felt like I was a chubby eight year old all over again.
You can probably guess how absolutely brimming with excitement I was when I heard they were making a sequel to "Pacific Rim." The years went by until just today I finally had the chance to see the sequel, "Pacific Rim Uprising," in theaters on its opening day.
Honestly, the movie was literally all I could ask for in a sequel to a movie that was about giant robots fighting giant monsters. That, of course, meaning that it just had more giant robots beating up giant monsters. I'm a simple man, so I have to say that I was more than sufficiently entertained. Aside from the mindless (but awesome) action, the creators of this movie decided to expand on the story that was introduced in the first movie. Some of the things they tackled included the repercussions of the war with the kaiju (the monsters) ending, new technologies that were developed in the time that had passed, and the introduction of all new characters (while keeping some key characters from the last movie as an anchor, of course).
Though the characters and the plot were still as shallow as ever, the story flowed a lot like the last movie. A major difference I noticed was mainly with how the movie looked. Unlike the first "Pacific Rim," "Pacific Rim Uprising" didn't boast as much color work or dramatic scenery as Guillermo Del Toro's run with the first movie.
This movie had most of the fighting occur in the pale light of day, which didn't have nearly as much punch on me as the Tokyo city showdown in the first movie, which was perfect. The new robots seemed to move more dynamically, hitting more acrobatic moves that seemed impossible in the first movie. This could be due to the time-lapsed change in tech, or just the director losing feeling for the original concept.
In all, it was a phenomenally entertaining movie. Some aspects got away from the creative team a bit and bordered on the whole thing turning into nothing more than another Michael Bay "Transformer" movie, but that's quite alright. For what it was, it did its job. I'm really happy I got to experience it and feel like the zany adrenaline fueled kid that I was again for a couple of hours. I'll be looking forward to the next one for sure.
