Pacific Rim Uprising | Screening from 22nd March 2018  | ★ ★ ★  ½ 

Last night, I had the absolute pleasure of being at the Perth premiere of Pacific Rim Uprising, the long awaited sequel to Pacific Rim at Hoyts Carousel.

As I sat down with my popcorn, excited to be transported back into the Pacific Rim universe, I felt slightly let down. The plot line was just a basic rehash of the first movie. Amara Namari, played by Cailee Spaeny is also an orphan in search of a family and a home. Who does that sound like? Let me give you a hint, it is Mariko Mori.

First time round, I felt Mariko Mori was endearing and she was my favourite character of the first film but doing it all over again, honestly could they not come up with anything else? But, I did enjoy the fact that the people who save the universe this time round were both women.

Amara, a young girl that is a mechanical genius, uses her knowledge of the Jaeger equipment to figure out where the rogue jaeger is coming from. Then we have Liwen Shao played by Jian Tian, who is the head of a multi-million dollar corporation Shao Industries, who uses her mechanical skills to come to the aide of Amara and Jake Pentecost played by John Boyega.

Although, most of the advertising features John Boyega as the lead, he only provides a bit of comic relief with a few one liners, that elicited only a small chuckle from the audience.

As an action movie, I really enjoyed the special effects and the fight scenes but did not enjoy the plot line as much. Overall, if you are looking for action, giant robots killing monsters and you don’t really need a great plot line go for it. On a side note, I was thrilled to see a movie of this scale being filmed in Australia.

Pacific Rim – Uprising opens in cinemas today.

Gautami Sithambaram