It’s likely you remember Pacific Rim, the 2013 movie featuring giant monsters known as Kaijus, and the Jaegers, equally huge robots which humanity had created in order to deal with the Kaiju threat.
Pacific Rim surely was one of 2013’s most entertaining movies, and like other films directed by Guillermo del Toro, had the right mix of horror and charm, plus plenty of interesting characters to boot too.
These included Mako Mori, the Jaeger pilot played by attractive Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi, who as we can see in Pacific Rim Uprising’s latest trailer will be reprising his role in this sequel. Sadly, though, Stacker Pentecost, the charismatic director played by Idris Elba won’t appear in this movie, although his son, a hotshot Jaeger pilot named Jake, will be filling his boots in Pacific Rim Uprising.
Jake is played by John Boyega, an actor familiar to audiences worldwide due to his role of Finn in the new Star Wars movies. It will be interesting to see how Boyega handles a completely different role here, and if he is able to deliver a solid performance in the leading role like British actor Charles Hunnam did in the original Pacific Rim movie.
Of course, like the first Pacific Rim movie, this will also feature larger than life special effects and titanic battles between Kaijus and Jaegers, which are sure to take up a significant portion of the film’s running time.
It remains to be seen, though, whether this can match Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 film, and whether Steven S. DeKnight – who’s taking over the director’s chair here (Guillermo del Toro is the movie’s producer) – can stop this from becoming a bloated, lifeless spectacle and a pale imitation of the original as is the case with many sequels these days.
We’ll find out when Pacific Rim Uprising hits movie theatres this March – but for the time being, this latest trailer suggests Uprising might just have what it takes to please Kaiju fans this year.
Pacific Rim Uprising (Universal Pictures)