Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

This bland sequel is only a minor improvement on the original; it corrects some mistakes while highlighting eccentric charms but remains largely unremarkable.

Boyega's natural charisma keeps the film watchable despite the absence of del Toro. It offers solid, scrappy fun with giant robot action but lacks the poetry and soul of the predecessor.

Steven S. DeKnight’s sequel lacks del Toro’s visual acumen but makes up for it with energetic chaos and hedges closer to nightmarish intensity; it is a more fascinating and unpredictable creation than its predecessor.

Uprising offers more gonzo invention and giddy destruction than the original, with DeKnight twisting the franchise in surprising directions. The action delivers spectacular property damage and thrills beyond recent Transformers films, though it rushes through character beats.

The critic finds the sequel lightly likeable and an improvement over the original thanks to more coherent plotting and human characterisation. John Boyega's charismatic lead performance is singled out for praise.

The sequel improves on the original thanks to John Boyega’s charisma and a more cohesive plot with better-paced action scenes. It has a goofy likability and slick entertainment value despite a thin story.

The film delivers noisy, brash crash-bang-wallop entertainment that becomes pleasurable once viewers adjust to the decibel level and destruction. Boyega brings likeable heroism and humour as the lead, giving the project a tongue-in-cheek quality absent from similar blockbusters.

The critic finds the sequel adroit and enjoyable as giant-robot sci-fi action, with better-than-average sequences and amiable humor. He singles out its ability to hit a nostalgic Godzilla sweet spot.

An unpretentious, workmanlike and bone-headed sequel that is better than the first film, led by John Boyega’s skittish charisma. It is set mostly in China and proudly unpretentious.

Boyega adds real bounce to proceedings while DeKnight delivers the expected giant-robot spectacle. The sequel provides the fun, larger-than-life kaiju action fans expect.

The film is dumb and formulaic but still zesty enough to carry through its set pieces, with a cynical market-driven approach that includes substantial Chinese elements and thrilling moments in the suits.

The film is a disjointed sequel with repetitive monster mayhem that makes little sense. It delivers expected city-smashing action and punches above its weight as mindless junk entertainment.

The critic finds it a cartoony, unremarkable robot-monster spectacle that ditches the original’s distinctive elements for a Transformers-like approach lacking heft and imagination. He singles out the paint-by-numbers franchise construction and formulaic future installments.

The critic calls it a bland, efficient, cheerfully witless sequel that is dumber and slighter than the original but more endurable. He notes the clunky noisy action and rock-’em-sock-’em appeal while admitting it is not really for him.

The follow-up contains little of the geeky enthusiasm of the original; it is an impersonal and sometimes tedious sequel that proves it is possible to screw up giant robots punching giant monsters.

The film is atrocious and cheap-looking with muddled plotting that denies stars like Boyega space to shine. It tramples the original’s premise and feels like a committee-written cash-in with flat visuals.

A parlously plotted sci-fi sequel that is the first cuckoo of spring, relying on special effects, music and hummable one-liners from John Boyega while planting a weak plot. It is brainless pop-tech apocalypse spectacle.

The sequel shifts focus to grand-scale fights between Jaegers and Kaijus with some fun from returning comic characters. Battles feel less poetic than the original, with daylight clarity highlighting the action but also its sameness.

The sequel brings nothing new to the franchise except repetition and becomes tiresome in its cliched plotting and repetitive action sequences. It is strictly for those who left the original wanting more.

The critic calls it surprisingly enjoyable nonsense that delivers fun robot-vs-monster action and commits fully to its mythology if you liked the first film, but notes weaker logic, character work, design, and scale.

The critic finds it fast-moving and moderately entertaining with impressive action sequences, but criticizes it for being a generic remix with interchangeable characters, unmemorable robots and monsters, and a sense that it evaporates after viewing.

The first half is weighed down by heavy exposition and broadly sketched characters, but the second half becomes a joyful, cartoonish romp with coherent, colorful action sequences. Boyega's charm and the eccentric returning characters provide highlights amid the absurdity.

The film delivers the same bombastic robot-vs-monster action as the first but with more teenage angst, muddled plotting, and a lack of invention, making it forgettable overall. Boyega's effortless charm and wit give it a slight edge and elevate the material.

The critic praises John Boyega's charismatic lead performance and the film's serviceable giant robot action but faults it for lacking the original's energy, design, world-building, and personality, calling it a pale imitation.

The critic calls it an aggressively commercial bore-fest that risks tarnishing the original's memory, with too many shallow characters, a bloated runtime, and repetitive action scenes that grow boring despite some clever twists.

The critic finds the sequel scatterbrained and exhausting, losing the original's geeky exhilaration and failing at coherent storytelling and fight choreography, though John Boyega's charm provides occasional bright spots.

The critic finds the sequel formulaic and cynical, with no fun or emotional pull. They single out the lack of stakes and the uninteresting monsters and robots as the main complaint.