The Pacific Rim Uprising trailer dropped today at New York Comic Con.
The film is a sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 sci-fi epic about soldiers manning giant robots called Jagers in order to battle monsters called kaiju. The original filmed Charlie Hunnam, Clifton Collins, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Diego Klattenhoff, Rinko Kikuchi, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman.
Uprising will be released on March 23, 2018, and will feature a brand new cast outside of Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Burn Gorman who will reprise their roles as eccentric scientists working with the military to defeat the monsters.
The new film star John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Tian Jing, Cailee Spaeny, and Adria Arjona. It’s directed by Steven S. DeKnight. This will be DeKnight’s first feature film. His previous credits include episodes of Daredevil, Dollhouse, Smallville, and Angel. He also served as a producer on Spartacus: Gods the Arena, and Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
Uprising takes place a decade after the Battle of the Breach, which took place at the end of the first film. The plot’s description, according to Wikipedia is the following…”It has been ten years since the Battle of the Breach and the oceans are still, but restless. Vindicated by the victory at the Breach, the Jaeger program has evolved into the most powerful global defense force in human history. The PPDC now calls upon the best and brightest to rise up and become the next generation of heroes when the Kaiju threat returns. Into this is thrust ex-jaeger pilot Jake Pentecost, son of the late Stacker Pentecost (Boyega), who is given a chance by his adopted sister, Mako Mori (Kikicuchi) to unite with the world and fellow Jaeger pilots to prevent humanity’s extinction.”
This explains some of the things happening in the trailer — especially the Jaeger vs. Jaeger battle sequences. However, what we’re treated to here looks like a reboot of the first film — a bunch of young, upstart pilots manning Jaegers and battling monsters. This is fine, but there’s nothing about the trailer that grabs you. The first film, whether you liked it or not, had a dynamite trailer. It was fun, thrilling, and it had you wanting more. Of course, the execution of that film is debatable. Here’s it’s more of the same. This definitely needs a second, more ad ass trailer in order to sell me on this film.