Trailer Talk: Pacific Rim Uprising

In terms of underappreciated, fist-pumping crowd pleasers it's hard to beat 2013's kaiju fight fest from Guillermo Del Toro Pacific Rim. Though the film disappointed at the box office a strong cult following and home video sales, served a spark plug for sequel talk. The news has been admittedly back and forth since then with Del Toro signing on, then not signing on (sound familiar Hobbit fans?) and countless other delays. But now we've got a full movie with a burgeoning new star (John Boyega) and now...an action packed trailer.

The Skinny

So it's the future and humanity seems to have moved on from the events of the last film. That is until more complex and dangerous monsters arrive on the scene looking to finish the job. Now it'll be up to the son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba in the last film) and Mako Mori to train a new group of pilots to cancel the apocalypse once again.

What Stands Out

Boyega Giving Speeches

So a lot of people are going to be thrown by his accent, he is English, but hearing John Boyega use a similar cadance to Idris Elba for his pre-battle speech that underlines the entire trailer feels right in so many ways. I'm pumped.

Familiar Looks/Different Application

The first Pacific Rim was visual marvel, matching it's complex neon-dunked CGI battle scenes with rain and night time fights. While the design of the monsters and our giant robots are very similar, the film is notably lighter with a lot of the battles taking place in the daytime. I'm unsure how well this will work visually but it's a noticeably different astetic.

There's a lot of little details that feel different as well. The displays look updated, i.e. the weapons appear to show up in our heroes hands, the graphical displays are new, and it looks like there's a lot more innocent bystanders in the crossfire this time around (no more bunkers guys). A lot of stuff I'm curious about.

What's Different This Time Around?

I'm having some difference putting together what's different in regards to the plot or the kaiju. I'm hoping there's some new characters I like, a near new monster of angle the aliens who create these things are going for, though I like seeing the group of Jaegers work as a team against a giant foe, that's a lot of fun. 

Verdict: Catiously Hyped

Just because it bears so many similarities to Independence Day and ended so well I'm hesitant to go into hype overdrive. Then again we have Mako Mori and Finn from Star Wars slashing giant monsters with laser swords so how bad could it be. Hype meter 7/10