So I got to see the new PR sequel tonight. It's not a great sequel, but it's also far from being the worst. I was expecting it to be less good based on some of the reviews I've read.
C-
As mentioned, I was pretty unsure about the idea of a PR sequel and the trailers didn't really do much for me. They felt very generic, and with the tight way the first movie wraps up, there was considerable concern about finding a valid plot to bring the kaiju back. I'm pleased that even though the pacing of the movie seems a bit too rushed to me, the script addresses that in a way that makes a good degree of sense with respect to the PR universe. I will say at this point I'm not sure if another sequel is worthwhile, but I'll keep an open mind. Some of the plot threads here, in my mind, would have worked better as a third movie if a second good sequel had been made.
The new movie is set a full decade after the end of the first movie, with many of the major cities rebuilding and a new generation of Jaegers and similar technology being employed against the possibility that the Precursors (the race who launched the kaiju through the breach in the original film) will find a way to restart hostilities. Mako Mori (Rinko Kinuchi), one of the heroes of the first movie, is now serving as the Secretary General to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC). Her half-sibling, Jake Pentocost (John Boyega), is the protagonist of the new film and the biological son of Marshal Stacker Pentocost (Idris Elba).
Jake was in training at one point during the war to be a Jaeger pilot, even though he wasn't particularly interested in the role and mainly wanted to be near his father. A year before the events in the first film, he was expelled after getting into an argument with his friend and copilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood) and trying to pilot a Jaeger himself despite not being able to handle the neural load of doing so. Because the poorer cities and regions are slower to recover, Jake has chosen to make a lot of his "easier" money by swapping resources as he acquires them and also trying to collect parts from decommissioned Jaegers, a potential goldmine but naturally illegal since the PPDC doesn't want such technology to fall into the wrong hands.
Shao Industries in China, headed by chairwoman Liwen Shao (Jing Tian) is working on the "next generation" of Jaegers, which are intended to operate as remotely controlled units similar to existing drone technology today. She believes that this system will offer much greater flexibility than risking two living pilots per Jaeger, though of course not everyone is convinced. Mako doesn't believe the technology is safe enough, since drones could be hacked or otherwise comprised, and the Jaeger pilots also don't want to be made obsolete. Dr. Geiszler (Charlie Day) from the first film has been her assistant and public face on the drone project, while Dr. Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) has been working at the Jaeger base in China.
After a salvage job goes bad, Jake has a run in with young prodigy Amani Namari (Caelee Spaeney), whose familiar died in the original war when she was a child. She stole the part Jake was after to build a smaller-scale Jaeger prototype named Scrapper, though they are soon arrested by the PPDC. Since Jake has prior arrests for trouble making, he's forced - with Mako's influence - to reenlist as a trainer and help Nate train new troops so he can avoid a jail sentence. Amani is enlisted as a cadet due to her skill, despite Scrapper being technically illegal.
Things start to turn bad when a seemingly routine meeting of the PPDC Council is attacked by a rogue drone Jaeger, resulting in Mako being killed. When it's later learned that this unit has a kaiju brain controlling it (one whose biology differs from the genetic structure of its forebears, meaning it was created on Earth and not the other universe), Dr. Gottlieb soon makes a horrific discovery.
In the first film, one of the major plot points was Geiszler's idea to try a mental link with a kaiju brain, which gave them vital information to closing the breach but also created a link between his mind and the Precursors. When the drone Jaegers are deployed and the kaiju components snuck into them are activated, it's realized that Geiszler has spent the past decade being unwittingly brainwashed to help make a new invasion possible. Some of the drones attempt to open multiple new breaches, and Gottlieb manages with Shao's help to shut them down, but several powerful kaiju make it through the breach while Geiszler escapes in the chaos.
Jake's group battles the kaiju in Tokyo, although the fight isn't without a high cost eventually (of the eight cadet pilots, three are killed off and most of the Jaegers are disabled or destroyed). Geiszler apparently planned for this contingency and also modified some of Shao's automated technology to allow the kaiju to merge into a single powerful entity, which wants to destroy Mt. Fuji because kaiju blood reacts violently with a heavy concentration of mineral deposits. Gottlieb had made this discovery while trying to perfect a boosting systems for use on Jaegers, and the resulting destruction would be horrific for the entire planet.
I won't really give away the ending, but overall the script isn't as bad as it could have been. There are a couple of major issues I have, the biggest one being Mako. It's always great to see returning cast, and I enjoyed Rinko in the first film, but she really doesn't get enough to do here. She literally has about five minutes of total screen time and her death could have been a good emotional moment for Jake, but it comes way too early. The fact that she and Jake are half-siblings and share a very close bond is addressed in one very nice scene, and that's about all we get to see. The character of Nate was initially intended to be Raleigh Becket (her partner from the first film), but was changed when Charlie Hunnam was unavailable with a scheduling conflict.
I have some issues with Charlie Day as well, as his performance feels a bit more... scattered than the first film. While I understand, within the context of the timeframe, that it's fair to suggest the Precursor influence is pretty strong at this point, it would have been nice to see more of an inner struggle since part of Geiszler is aware of what's happened and that he's not his proper self. But most of what we see is an Evil! version who kind of only shows up for the later battle as it's convenient.
There are a lot of interesting concepts and new characters, but one of the problems is the film's pace is too frenetic. It moves very quickly from point to point and doesn't give us the time to really flesh out most of these characters in the way that the first film did for most of its protagonists. I don't think the movie is entirely too much mindless action, personally, but the battles don't have the same epic quality compared to the originals.
As mentioned, I was pretty unsure about the idea of a PR sequel and the trailers didn't really do much for me. They felt very generic, and with the tight way the first movie wraps up, there was considerable concern about finding a valid plot to bring the kaiju back. I'm pleased that even though the pacing of the movie seems a bit too rushed to me, the script addresses that in a way that makes a good degree of sense with respect to the PR universe. I will say at this point I'm not sure if another sequel is worthwhile, but I'll keep an open mind. Some of the plot threads here, in my mind, would have worked better as a third movie if a second good sequel had been made.
The new movie is set a full decade after the end of the first movie, with many of the major cities rebuilding and a new generation of Jaegers and similar technology being employed against the possibility that the Precursors (the race who launched the kaiju through the breach in the original film) will find a way to restart hostilities. Mako Mori (Rinko Kinuchi), one of the heroes of the first movie, is now serving as the Secretary General to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC). Her half-sibling, Jake Pentocost (John Boyega), is the protagonist of the new film and the biological son of Marshal Stacker Pentocost (Idris Elba).
Jake was in training at one point during the war to be a Jaeger pilot, even though he wasn't particularly interested in the role and mainly wanted to be near his father. A year before the events in the first film, he was expelled after getting into an argument with his friend and copilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood) and trying to pilot a Jaeger himself despite not being able to handle the neural load of doing so. Because the poorer cities and regions are slower to recover, Jake has chosen to make a lot of his "easier" money by swapping resources as he acquires them and also trying to collect parts from decommissioned Jaegers, a potential goldmine but naturally illegal since the PPDC doesn't want such technology to fall into the wrong hands.
Shao Industries in China, headed by chairwoman Liwen Shao (Jing Tian) is working on the "next generation" of Jaegers, which are intended to operate as remotely controlled units similar to existing drone technology today. She believes that this system will offer much greater flexibility than risking two living pilots per Jaeger, though of course not everyone is convinced. Mako doesn't believe the technology is safe enough, since drones could be hacked or otherwise comprised, and the Jaeger pilots also don't want to be made obsolete. Dr. Geiszler (Charlie Day) from the first film has been her assistant and public face on the drone project, while Dr. Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) has been working at the Jaeger base in China.
After a salvage job goes bad, Jake has a run in with young prodigy Amani Namari (Caelee Spaeney), whose familiar died in the original war when she was a child. She stole the part Jake was after to build a smaller-scale Jaeger prototype named Scrapper, though they are soon arrested by the PPDC. Since Jake has prior arrests for trouble making, he's forced - with Mako's influence - to reenlist as a trainer and help Nate train new troops so he can avoid a jail sentence. Amani is enlisted as a cadet due to her skill, despite Scrapper being technically illegal.
Things start to turn bad when a seemingly routine meeting of the PPDC Council is attacked by a rogue drone Jaeger, resulting in Mako being killed. When it's later learned that this unit has a kaiju brain controlling it (one whose biology differs from the genetic structure of its forebears, meaning it was created on Earth and not the other universe), Dr. Gottlieb soon makes a horrific discovery.
In the first film, one of the major plot points was Geiszler's idea to try a mental link with a kaiju brain, which gave them vital information to closing the breach but also created a link between his mind and the Precursors. When the drone Jaegers are deployed and the kaiju components snuck into them are activated, it's realized that Geiszler has spent the past decade being unwittingly brainwashed to help make a new invasion possible. Some of the drones attempt to open multiple new breaches, and Gottlieb manages with Shao's help to shut them down, but several powerful kaiju make it through the breach while Geiszler escapes in the chaos.
Jake's group battles the kaiju in Tokyo, although the fight isn't without a high cost eventually (of the eight cadet pilots, three are killed off and most of the Jaegers are disabled or destroyed). Geiszler apparently planned for this contingency and also modified some of Shao's automated technology to allow the kaiju to merge into a single powerful entity, which wants to destroy Mt. Fuji because kaiju blood reacts violently with a heavy concentration of mineral deposits. Gottlieb had made this discovery while trying to perfect a boosting systems for use on Jaegers, and the resulting destruction would be horrific for the entire planet.
I won't really give away the ending, but overall the script isn't as bad as it could have been. There are a couple of major issues I have, the biggest one being Mako. It's always great to see returning cast, and I enjoyed Rinko in the first film, but she really doesn't get enough to do here. She literally has about five minutes of total screen time and her death could have been a good emotional moment for Jake, but it comes way too early. The fact that she and Jake are half-siblings and share a very close bond is addressed in one very nice scene, and that's about all we get to see. The character of Nate was initially intended to be Raleigh Becket (her partner from the first film), but was changed when Charlie Hunnam was unavailable with a scheduling conflict.
I have some issues with Charlie Day as well, as his performance feels a bit more... scattered than the first film. While I understand, within the context of the timeframe, that it's fair to suggest the Precursor influence is pretty strong at this point, it would have been nice to see more of an inner struggle since part of Geiszler is aware of what's happened and that he's not his proper self. But most of what we see is an Evil! version who kind of only shows up for the later battle as it's convenient.
There are a lot of interesting concepts and new characters, but one of the problems is the film's pace is too frenetic. It moves very quickly from point to point and doesn't give us the time to really flesh out most of these characters in the way that the first film did for most of its protagonists. I don't think the movie is entirely too much mindless action, personally, but the battles don't have the same epic quality compared to the originals.
