2018 will see more from the world of monsters, men and mecha-machines in Pacific Rim Uprising, which introduces John Boyega (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) to the battle against the Kaiju. He’ll be joining another team of Jaeger robots to fight in a new war against the monsters that have returned to threaten humanity with extinction.
Sadly, Guillermo del Toro (The Shape Of Water) is only an executive producer this time around. It’s got Steven S. DeKnight in the director’s chair, who’s credits include Daredevil, and you can check out the trailer below to see how the film has come together ahead of its 2018 release.
Release date
Pacific Rim Uprising has a release date in the UK of March 23rd, 2018, which is the same date that it’s due out in the US and Canada. It’ll have competition from Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time, which is out in the UK on the same weekend, along with Tomb Raider and The Square, which are out the week before. Based on the cinematic release date, the film is expected to arrive on DVD and Blu-ray in July 2018.
Story
The film is set ten years after the climactic events at the Battle of the Breach in the opening film and it centres around young Jaeger pilot, Jake Pentecost (Boyega). He’s the son of Stacker Pentecost, played by Idris Elba in the previous film, who died saving humanity from the threat at the Breach.
Jake started out continuing in his father’s footsteps as an up-and-coming Jaeger pilot, but he flunked out before getting mixed up with a life of crime. However, he’s given another chance by his half sister Mako, one of the main pilots from Pacific Rim, when a new and seemingly unstoppable force arrives on Earth, threatening human extinction.
Cast
John Boyega stars as Jake Pentecost, the new young hero for the Jaeger programme, and he’ll be joining returning cast members Rinko Kikuchi (47 Ronin) as his half sister Mako Mori, Charlie Day (Fist Fight) as Dr. Newt Geiszler and Burn Gorman (The Dark Knight Rises) as Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. The new members of the Jaeger team will include Scott Eastwood (Suicide Squad) as Jake’s Ice-Man-like rival pilot Lambert and newcomer Cailee Spaeny as young Jaeger hacker Amara.
The cast also includes Jing Tian and Adria Arjona.
Production
Steven S. DeKnight (@stevendeknight on Twitter) has directed the film, who also conceived the story with T.S. Nowlin, and co-wrote the screenplay with Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder and T.S. Nowlin. It has been produced by Thomas Tull, Mary Parent, Jon Jashni, Cale Boyter, Guillermo del Toro, John Boyega, and Femi Oguns. Eric McLeod is the executive producer.
The music is by John Paesano (Daredevil, The Defenders), and Dan Mindel (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) is the director of photography. You can see more from the production on the film’s official Facebook page.
First impressions
The opening film was a lot of fun, delivering the kind of monster movie that many have tried and failed to achieve, so there’s a little pressure on Pacific Rim Uprising. The trailer has its good points and bad points across the board, with some great visuals effects and others that look a little too much like they’ve been taken from the Power Rangers cutting room floor.
There are some cool shots to look out for where Dan Mindel plays with perspective, light and movement to deliver the scale of the film. It’s something he did amazingly in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so this should be one of the big reasons to catch the film on the big screen.
It’s good to see a few of the original cast members returning for the sequel to bring an element of continuity to it. The addition of John Boyega to the cast should add to the profile of the film release too. However, he’s a bit wooden in his delivery in the trailer below, which is a million miles away from what we’ve seen from him in the Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailers, or his performance in Detroit. Fingers crossed, it strings together a little better in the film itself.
