Pacific Rim: Uprising

I’ve been waiting for this movie ever since the first Pacific Rim back in 2013. It’s Guillermo del Toro’s best work in my book. That’s the movie that should have won this man an Oscar not The Shape of Water. I saw the Rim like 13 times in the movie theater (at least). This possibly matches the amount of times I saw the original Batman back in 89, but I’m assuming I’ve seen Batman more as it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to see a flick back in 89(As I recall, four dollars a show which is even cheap for 1980s standards (fuck inflation).

Rim was a marvel and a standing out point for a cinematic genus.

Too bad Del Toro did not come back for Uprising, but I was still geared up for it.  The trailer for the movie was amazing. Far more amazing than the trailer for the 1st movie ( and the soundtrack in the trailer helps you get pumped for Uprising)

I will say this, my hopes were too high for the squeal to one of my all time favorites films. I already notice off the bat how bad Uprising is gong. Too cartoonish in comparison to the original film. Del Toro was trying  for something realistic, going further than the to Japanese monster movies that inspired it.

Uprising, I’ll give an A for effort for it’s attempts not to be like the first one, but in that attempt, seems to abandon what made me love the first one. Though I loved the genre, Uprising is trying to be a live action anime (the Cameo of a Gundam statue located in a city in Japan is proof of that), which in any other situation I would have loved, but coming from Pacific Rim to Uprising it felt like someone was watering down the action not pumping it up. I could not help but compare the realness and felt myself wanting it.

This cartonishness lead to childishness. While the original set a very adult content dramatic tone that allowed me to feel emotion with all the Jaegers pilots in the film, Uprising seem designed to sell toys. All the Jaegers were definitely far cooler looking in this movie, but nothing about their pilots stick out and made me care weather they lived or died in the end. They were making a movie that was not met to be taken seriously, and I seriously didn’t

Pacific Rim: Uprising is not without it’s pleasurable moments (Cause I am an Anime fan and watching the actions sequences was like watching an episode of Gundam Wing), but it’s missing too much of what made the original so special.