Pacific Rim 2: Uprising (2018)

Summary: It is ten years after the last invasion of the countries bordering the Pacific by the Kaiju (very large monsters from an alternative reality), which were subdued by humans operating “Jaegers”, very large humanoid figures, there is a new threat. This is one or more renegade Jaegers controlled apparently by the brains of Kaiju. In this mix are Jake, son of a dead Jaeger hero and Amara, a young woman who has her own smaller jaeger. Jake becomes a Jaeger pilot trainer and Amara a trainee. As more renegade Jaegers appear the defenders muster their forces and Jake and his former partner Nate plus the trainees man the defending Jaegers. But their enemy are tasked with the reactivation of the Kaiju whose objective is to exterminate the human race.

Content: There is no sex or nudity, or drinking, smoking or drug taking. Jake is seen selling black market equipment left over from previous Jaeger activities, and meets Amara a teenager, similarly engaged. There is a bit of boot camp stuff as trainees are shouted at. A lot of them are Chinese, as are some of the management. Newt, one of the scientists is secretly in league with the villains. Then mostly battles between the vast humanoid figures and towards the end between them and the Kaiju who have merged from the oceans again. We see the figures in combat and their internals where the humans are controlling them.

A View: I admit to being confused from the start, and even after reading the Wikipedia description of the plot I still don’t have it quite straight. Maybe my confusion was increased by the fact that I was watching it on Spanish TV, and much of the dialogue was in Chinese with Spanish subtitles. Considering the fact that it is absolute tosh, I thought John Boyega and Scott Eastwood did pretty well. It is thought that it has never got anywhere near covering its considerable costs, and so a second sequel has been cancelled. If you have not seen the first one, maybe have a go at that instead of this one.

There are a few robot films about, and human controlled machine films, Pacific Rim being one of the latter. Here are a few from my selection: Hardware, Real Steel and Ghost in the Shell.