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drwexThere's not a lot to say about this movie. It's short and it's entirely composed of fan service bits aimed at the Asian markets, where the first movie did amazingly well. I'm given to understand that Chinese companies put up the money for this because they wanted a sequel to put in their theaters, knowing they'd make back their money and then some. 2/5 stars unless you absolutely adored the first one (I did) and don't mind that it lacks del Toro's vision (I do).
There's very little plot to this movie, so not much to spoil. Also, don't see it unless you saw the first one because it essentially assumes you know all the events and explanatory bits of that movie. This one has only minimal touch explanation and does that at high speed. John Boyega does his level best to power this thing along, but even with name performances from Rinko Kikuchi as a ten-years-older Mako Mori and newcomer Cailee Spaeny as the spunky smart kid there's not enough to hold this movie up.
What made 2013's original Pacific Rim awesome was partly the novelty - US audiences aren't exposed to the kinds of giant-robot/mecha/kaiju films that Asian audiences see regularly - and the approach. Pacific Rim brought us a vision of "black guy and Asian woman save the world." I literally cannot think of another movie that can be summarized that way, and having the movie's locations set around the titular Pacific rim meant characters and settings that aren't the standard "Vancouver repurposed" look Americans get.
Since I saw that original, I've had a chance to read and reflect on what del Toro does and I think he spends a lot of time thinking about monsters and monstrosity. This second-installment film doesn't give monsters any more thought than "Hey, THAT would look cool in IMAX." The original had a vision of humanity under siege and peoples' responses to that. This film has, "I bet some people will scavenge junk and let's show off our spunky kid and troubled hero."
The original film had some actually interesting (if SUPER geeky) discussion about how these things might actually work - what does it take to make thousands of pounds of powered metal arms deliver a rocket punch? How would a mecha designed with a Russian aesthetic differ from all the others? This film has "hey, let's get rid of that sumo aesthetic in favor of acrobatics that make even less sense but Power Rangers-type fans will love."
It's not a bad movie, but it lacks vision and does nothing original. That is actually not uncommon for middle elements of trilogies and if this one makes the expected book it would be cool to see them bring back del Toro for a really banging climax third installment. I feel like the invented universe has enough potential to be mined for more good stories, and there are even hints in this script that we haven't seen the last of this.
There's very little plot to this movie, so not much to spoil. Also, don't see it unless you saw the first one because it essentially assumes you know all the events and explanatory bits of that movie. This one has only minimal touch explanation and does that at high speed. John Boyega does his level best to power this thing along, but even with name performances from Rinko Kikuchi as a ten-years-older Mako Mori and newcomer Cailee Spaeny as the spunky smart kid there's not enough to hold this movie up.
What made 2013's original Pacific Rim awesome was partly the novelty - US audiences aren't exposed to the kinds of giant-robot/mecha/kaiju films that Asian audiences see regularly - and the approach. Pacific Rim brought us a vision of "black guy and Asian woman save the world." I literally cannot think of another movie that can be summarized that way, and having the movie's locations set around the titular Pacific rim meant characters and settings that aren't the standard "Vancouver repurposed" look Americans get.
Since I saw that original, I've had a chance to read and reflect on what del Toro does and I think he spends a lot of time thinking about monsters and monstrosity. This second-installment film doesn't give monsters any more thought than "Hey, THAT would look cool in IMAX." The original had a vision of humanity under siege and peoples' responses to that. This film has, "I bet some people will scavenge junk and let's show off our spunky kid and troubled hero."
The original film had some actually interesting (if SUPER geeky) discussion about how these things might actually work - what does it take to make thousands of pounds of powered metal arms deliver a rocket punch? How would a mecha designed with a Russian aesthetic differ from all the others? This film has "hey, let's get rid of that sumo aesthetic in favor of acrobatics that make even less sense but Power Rangers-type fans will love."
It's not a bad movie, but it lacks vision and does nothing original. That is actually not uncommon for middle elements of trilogies and if this one makes the expected book it would be cool to see them bring back del Toro for a really banging climax third installment. I feel like the invented universe has enough potential to be mined for more good stories, and there are even hints in this script that we haven't seen the last of this.
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Date: 2018-03-26 04:57 pm (UTC)