The good news about Pacific Rim: Uprising is that director Steven DeKnight (making his feature debut) faithfully recaptures the tone of the original film without missing a beat, and Day and Gorman, two of the only returning cast members, are back in more prominent roles.īut unless you were dying to see just what was up next in the world established by the first Pacific Rim, there simply isn’t that much going on here. But it worked, somehow, thanks to its neon style and goofy verve courtesy of the Oscar-winning director, and a monsterific subplot involving scientists played by Charlie Day and Burn Gorman. It’s an inherently silly premise that dares us to take it seriously.

In Guillermo Del Toro’s original Pacific Rim, written by Carnival Row scribe Travis Beacham, giant monsters called kaiju rise from the depths of the oceans and proceed to destroy major cities around the world.īut what begins as the usual Godzilla formula takes a turn with humanity’s last hope: rather than guns or bombs or a nuclear arsenal, it’s giant robots (called jaegers) piloted by humans that pummel the monsters to death in WWF-style brawls.

The Cat's Meow by Emily Carmichael