The Downgrading of "Pacific Rim: Uprising"

Well, hello, there, readers.  It's been a minute.  For those of you who have been anticipating another review, I must say that I wish I had something better to report.  Frankly, early spring is not a particularly hot time for movies, because the Summer blockbusters are still a little over a month away (for the most part).  However, there's always something new out there; yet for some reason I decided to see Pacific Rim:  Uprising.  I mean, I've probably seen worse action movies, but you won't have to go far to find a better one. There were a couple elements within the film that peaked my interest, but not much that kept them.

Frankly, it was just bad.

Starting with the opening sequence of narration, I could tell that I wasn't going to care.  At all.  About anything.  I only vaguely remember the O.G. Pacific Rim, and apparently the creators of the sequel cared about it just as much as the rest of us do.  Additionally, narration is already a fairly rudimentary and lazy method of exposition, but good narration, at times, can still be enjoyable (see Deadpool, The Prestige, Forrest Gump, and Fight Club for examples).  This is not one of those times.

The introductory explanation of the plot and character development was so shoddy that I probably would have rather been kept in the dark.  I think they were trying to add an emotional appeal to the lead character and the plot from the beginning, but they seriously would have been better off treating this like a stand-alone movie.  Plus, adding a trashy "I was supposed to live up to my dad's legacy but don't because I'm a terrible person" element is so played.

It was enjoyable to hear John Boyega's thick British accent, but the pleasantries in the acting department begin and end right there.  Although I have to admit that it was nice to see him outside of Star Wars.  Considering Harrison Ford was the only actor out of the original cast whose career wasn't destroyed by the franchise, I'm glad Boyega has been able to branch out so quickly.  Although, between this and The Last Jedi, he's quickly down in the count.  His character in Pacific Rim:  Uprising had no development or motivation throughout the entire movie, and he seemed to be on the same level of importance as his counterparts.  I'm fine with sharing the spotlight, but there was no reason to care about his character more than any throwaway extra.  His back story was weak, development was virtually nonexistent, and dialogue was unrealistic at best.

As far as the rest of the cast goes, I barely remember any of them outside of Charlie Day.  And they totally misused Charlie Day!  He has a hilarious voice and iconic demeanor, yet they tried to portray him as a discount Sam Rockwell from Iron Man 2.  And that's one of the worst MCU movies to date!  Right up there with Spider-Man 3 and Captain America:  The First Avenger.  Like I said, I barely remember anyone else, and it's probably for the best.  They had John Boyega star alongside some young girl for like half of it, but she seemed to show up randomly.  What is it with casting Boyega alongside pointless characters, anyway?

I don't remember the plot from the fist Pacific Rim, but I can almost promise this one made even less sense.  It's almost like the plot changed halfway through, and there were angles that weren't even remotely explained.  There's some alien force that's trying to wipe out the planet or something (yawn); but their origin, motivation, and end game are skimmed over faster than the pop-up ads at the start of a YouTube video.  Come to think of it, the aliens (or whatever they are) only show up for like the last 25 minutes!  The rest of the runtime deals with everyone talking about them and building the robots to fight them.  There's also an angle involving a training academy for the pilots of the robots that turns out to be literally useless.

Now, I know what you're gonna say.  You're gonna tell me that it's a movie made to sell action figures to prepubescent boys, and there's no reason I should be expecting anything more from it than big explosions and robots and aliens fighting each other.  And you know what?  You'd be right.  The only problem is that there was barely any killer robots and aliens fighting each other.  There was a half-***ed final battle that made no sense (and was far too short), the CGI was lazy, and absolutely no important characters died throughout the entire thing.  I think there were more robot-on-robot battles than robot-on-alien ones.  Apparently it's too difficult to even ask for some dope action scenes nowadays.  Although, to be honest, everything since Mad Max:  Fury Road just feels mediocre.  In fact, haven't you noted that most PG-13 action movies lately are super lame?  Maybe "R" actually stands for "Righteously Awesome!"  

Regardless, this was right up there with Transformers.  I could at least defend the first Pacific Rim by saying, "Yeah, it was dumb, but it was *cool* dumb!"  Pacific Rim:  Uprising is...just dumb.  I'd say it's equally bad as the Transformers movies, but that might be just a little too mean.  I mean, at least it was shorter than all the Transformers movies.  And there wasn't needless objectification of Megan Fox.  Although, come on, nobody can say that her career was built by her superior acting methods.

Let's just slap a 24% on this thing, send it to the 

Pawn Shop,

and try and forget that it ever happened.