If #GuillermoDelToro's #PacificRim was a love letter to the Kaiju film genre, #PacificRimUprising is a form letter.
Imagine you're walking down a lonely beach and you stumble upon an old oil lamp half buried in the sand. Thinking to pawn the antique, you polish it, only to have a genie emerge as you rub the lamp. Now, for what ever reason, one of your wishes is "I want to see Lister & Rimmer from Red Dwarf train some young Power Rangers to pilot their Transformers against King Ghidorah after The End of Evangelion sorta happens."
But your genie is a jackass, so you get the lamest version of all that.
This ties directly into a conversation sparked recently within the #PulpRev scene: #AGundamForUS. That while Japan is lagging behind in their own home genre (that of mecha & super robot anime), there's a prime opportunity to push native content. Similar to how Western RPGs succeeded the venerable JPRG for market dominance in the mid 2000s, Western crafted mecha could surpass the Japanese scene due to what some consider to be a creatively stagnant era in the genre.
Unfortunately, Pacific Rim: Uprising shows nearly the same dearth of creativity the Japanese media that it's emulating (when not blatantly copying) is currently suffering from.
As Niemeier brings up in his "A Gundam for US" post, one flaw in many current Mecha anime is an eschewing of 3 Act Structure; and that flaw is fully on display in PR:U. The movie instead watches like a 4 "Monster of the Week" episodes of various mecha shows edited together. You have: Baddie with Rogue Version of Hero 'Bot episode, the "Mass Production/Drone version of Hero 'Bot Goes Bezerk" episode, and the Final Boss Fight for the Fate of the World fight as well. Each of these plotlines and a string of subplots are smashed together rather than expanded and explored fully, and the characterization & action suffer because of that.
Evil iPod bots. Because... Drone Warfare=Bad(?)
John Boyega - I seriously am not sure if he has cause to hate his agent at this point, because this is two failing sci fi franchises he's associated with - stars as Alex Pentecost, son of the late, great Stacker Pentecost. Of course this movie begins with him as a thief, hunting scrap in a wasteland of decommissioned Jaegers for for money, and running )afoul of the law (where he's offered an opportunity to get out of prison by reenlisting in the Jaeger program and becoming like his father.)
But I get ahead of myself. Did I mention that the power core he's searching for gets snatched out from under his nose by a mysteriously hoodied figure? And that Hooded Figure turns out to be... A GIRL? (I know what you're thinking. "This is MOST UNORTHODOX!", but yeah, apparently, Girls can SCIENCE, too! I didn't know that!).
So of course after a comedic(?) chase between a home-built scrap Jaeger law enforcement, the two are arrested. But hey! Fan favorite Mako Mori (The surprising nadir of the heroine, as time has illustrated as Feminist praise for her began a wave of neutered heroines with both unbelievable Waif-Fu action chops and unsatisfactorily sexless character arcs as well, ramping up the "Man with Tits" factor to 11). But don't get too attached to Mako. She's in a Mentor role now, and you know what that means when your creative team is going off story-by-computational-algorithm.
The teenaged pilot candidates are incredulously housed in a unisex barracks. This of course allows for an introduction where a male candidate his defeated by a female, because f*** any hope of narrative tension, no girl can lose a fight evar! Various multicultural representatives are introduced, (but it's clear Legendary is looking to make its dosh in Cheyna) and our heroes have ice cream. Eastwood & Boyega pseudo-compete for the attentions of Adria Arjona's Jules Reyes, but the ships are only teased, never explored or resolved due to the film's amount of action & casting bloat.
The major thing that could carry such a paint-by-numbers plot would be Del Toro's eye for color palette & action, but that isn't present here.
And while we're mentioning the artistic direction, or lack thereof, compare not Gipsy Avenger to Gipsy Danger, but Crimson Tyhpoon & Cherno Alpha to Saber Athena & Bracer Phoenix.
That trademark Del Toro weirdness just isn't there. Nor do any of the new Jaegers present the weighty feel of mass that Pacific Rim's did. Everything's just too agile for its size. Everything quickly becomes to light (as in, physically, and even the lighting itself) and goofy as well, as this movie was clearly intended for a toy-purchasing audience. Forget ripping off End of Evangelion's evil iPod looking mass production Drone Jaegers, by the end we're ripping off the rocket ride sequence from Gundam.
And the MCU's theatrical dominance for the last 5 years guarantees that there's an almost inability to have a serious character arc. Moments that should be dramatic never quite feel that way either by the quality of the acting, script or directing. How can we mourn the death in battle of... uh... "that guy over there" when the the film attempts to juggle a dozen and more characters at us with separate mini arcs of their own?
This films lack of import carries on to the battles, of which it's odd to imply that there are too many. Or at least, Boyega's acting (or direction, or script) leaves his heroic journey bereft of the requisite arc that would leave you honestly involved with his final battles & triumph, as you've seen other men do the job better. With uninspired robot smashing up uninspired robot/monster against one backdrop after another, none of them have any more weight than a weak Michael Bay Transformers flick.
Of course, those did well in Cheyna as well so maybe a dismally promised "we're going to invade you." sequel baiting line (straight out of Independence Day: Resurgence!) Boyega threatens us with.