‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’ is a downpour of mediocrity

“Pacific Rim: Uprising” is the second installment in the newly established sci-fi movie franchise following Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 “Pacific Rim.” Could this film continue the visual flair and exciting action put in place by its predecessor while adding new elements to the mythos?

No. Not even if it tried.

Our story, taking place 10 years after the events of the first film, follows Jake (John Boyega), a rowdy young man and the son of a war hero, desperate to step out of his father’s shadow and live his own life. After a series of events, Jake and a young girl named Amara are taken to a facility to help train a new group of cadets learning to use the giant robot fighters, Jaegars, to battle the destructive horde of kaiju plaguing the planet. However, once a new threat is discovered, Jake and the cadets must suit up to take on the new enemy.

While the first “Pacific Rim” had some weak characters, the creativity, action and visual aesthetic made it at least somewhat memorable. The sequel, on the other hand, is hard to even call a film. Rather, it’s a weak example of a studio-produced, calculated product, desperately trying to jump onto the cinematic universe bandwagon and failing every step of the way.

The majority of this film can be described in one word— boring. The premise, characters and scenarios are so cookie-cutter that the audience is bound to be more invested in the changing aspect ratio than the plot itself. Every cliché you could imagine occurs and the film doesn’t take the time to try building its potentially interesting world. While some minor opportunities pop up that could’ve led into some interesting directions, the film would rather play it safe throughout and ignore those opportunities. The tone and pacing doesn’t help with this, as the film’s attempts to be comedic fall flat every time. The ending is so rushed and clearly trying to set up sequels that it becomes unintentionally laughable.

The characters are all either laughably dull or insatiably obnoxious. Boyega attempts to be as charismatic as possible, but is given so much painfully cliched material that his character ends up leaving little impact. Charlie Day’s character is the only memorable one, but for all the wrong reasons. Not only is his part in the story plain stupid, Day gives the same annoying performance that he did in the first film— without the overall strange tone, present in the initial “Pacific Rim,” to back it up this time around.

Even the monster fights and action sequences are incredibly monotonous. Although the final battle is somewhat amusing at times, the rest is clearly just there to have money shots for the trailer and provides no original creativity. The action scenes are filmed and edited in a chaotic manner, containing no atmosphere or visual flair. This is likely due to director Steven S. DeKnight background in television, rather than film.

While there are films way worse than “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” even those come off more memorable. This is a boring, tedious and mind numbing experience that may provide slivers of entertainment, but those moments are few and far between. “Pacific Rim: Uprising” is in no way worthy of a watch, unless you’re in need of something to help put you to sleep.