Double Trouble #5: Pacific Rim Uprising VS Black Panther
Double Trouble #5
Pacific Rim Uprising VS Black Panther
Welcome one and all to the fifth Double Trouble segment here at You Can’t Unwatch It. Once again I went to see two movies and review them in a different format than my regular reviews. This past weekend I watched Pacific Rim Uprising and Black Panther (which I am a month late getting to). Which did I like more? Did I like them both or did I hate both of them? Read ahead.
Pacific Rim Uprising
The story takes place roughly 10 years after the events of the first film and the world is rebuilding after being victorious in the war against the Kaiju. But a new threat arises and it is up to Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the son of Stacker Pentecost from the first film played by Idris Elba, Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), a group of young Jaeger pilots and other returning characters (Rinko Kikuchi, Burn Gorman and Charlie Day) to save the world when the stakes have never been lower.
The first Pacific Rim from 2013 was co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro…you know…a real filmmaker and it remains one of my favorite movies to watch over and over. It’s by no means a masterpiece as the plot is about as standard as a summer blockbuster can get and the characters not the most nuanced or fully fleshed out but it was del Toro’s clear love for monsters and robots, great visual design and genuine moments of awe inspiring robot vs monster action that gave the film it’s charm that makes me and others who like it return to it over and over. Even though it was a simple story of humans in robots fighting monsters, it was effectively told and didn’t overstay its welcome. As for Pacific Rim Uprising, it more or less wore me out after 30 minutes and it made me say “I miss Guillermo del Toro.”
Right off the bat the movie just felt off and like many bad sequels to good movies it felt like it was in a rush to get to the finish line. We start off with Jake who works as a sort of black market dealer to get stuff ranging from candy to old Jaeger parts. He is reluctant to return to the military to train cadets when he is busted in an unauthorized Jaeger along with a girl named Amara Namani played by Cailee Spaeny (who also becomes a cadet) but agrees to do it so he can get it out of the way and get back to his smuggler lifestyle. But then he just abruptly abandons his old ways and is gung ho again to fight Kaiju…OK. His character seems to grow but we don’t see anything visible in his behavior or even to things related in the plot to indicate it. It just happens.
The other characters in this film seem to only exist to move the plot forward. Even the returning characters played by Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Burn Gorman don't really have a lot of moments where they can be anything other than people to allow the plot to go from point A to point B. Sure, in the original film they didn’t have the deepest characterizations or the most interesting histories but they at least had more of a purpose in the story other than being tools to advance the plot. They felt like individuals with a purpose and didn’t feel wasted. In this film, I sometimes wondered why they were there other than to get cast members from the first film that were willing to reprise their roles. The one I single out the most is Charlie Day who was endearing as a comedy relief in the first movie but he is insufferable in the sequel.
The new characters are just blah. John Boyega’s Jake is probably the most memorable as he does have his moments of being charming and giving some appropriate moments of levity and Boyega does feel like he works better in this story than he did in Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. And he would have worked much better here if he had a great supporting cast like Charlie Hunnam had in the first film but alas everyone else is forgettable. Even Scott Eastwood (who looks eerily like his old man by the way) isn’t very good here and his character's rather ambiguous history with Jake seemed to have been forgotten midway through the film and Amara exists to be the tough “I-Can -Survive-On-My-Own” girl who learns to overcome a painful memory in order to sync with Jake. I would have like to know other things about her like how she learned to build and pilot her own Jaeger at the beginning but whatever. As for the other recruits in the program and other smaller characters, there’s nothing to say about them.
The robot vs monster action is overly frenetic, visually dull and have absolutely no tension to them at all. In the first film, you were with the Jaeger pilots in the cockpit and del Toro managed to communicate in each battle how dangerous it was for humans to pilot a Jaeger to kill a skyscraper sized monster where an endless number of things can go wrong. And right at the beginning of the first film, del Toro communicated how scary and lethal the Kaiju are and how desperate the struggle was to defeat them. In the sequel, potential world ending events seem to be treated like a walk in the park and the pilots never feel in any real danger at any point. I saw it with my sister and we were bored with it enough that we were rooting for the monsters to win. Our wish went unfulfilled.
I would have talked about the story more here but I didn’t want to spoil anything in case anyone wants to see it and really why bother? I was discussing this film with my brother and he summed both movies up best. He stated that the first film may be rather unoriginal but it was del Toro’s touches that gave it it’s charm but the sequel is unoriginal and charmless. I couldn’t have put it better. In fact, Pacific Rim Uprising reminded me a lot of 2016’s horrible Independence Day Resurgence and it even sequel baits the same way. I wasn’t expecting that from a Pacific Rim sequel…sigh…
Black Panther
Yes, I know I am late to this one. I will be honest and state that the trailers, the hype and the overly politicized reviews and articles kept me from seeing this one for a bit. I waited a month or so and finally decided it was time to check it out and it wasn’t bad. I’ll admit I liked it much more than all of the MCU installments released last year. I am fairly certain that everyone and their pet has seen this one so I will not summarize the plot. Instead I will go straight into the pros and cons.
First off, I will say that aside from some small issues I will illustrate later on the story is pretty good. It is one of the more engaging stories to come out of the MCU. Chadwick Boseman is very good as T’Challa/Black Panther and sells himself well as someone going through a struggle of having to take the throne after his father was killed (in Captain America Civil War (2016) and to keep his kingdom a secret and especially safe after Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan who really is an intimidating villain here) threatens its safety. The conflict between T’Challa and Killmonger is one of the more interesting ones I have seen in the MCU and I like how it involved an earlier family conflict that T’Challa’s father tried to bury and it comes back to haunt those involved. Apart from the sci-fi/comic book technological stuff and super powered brawl that occur in the film, I find stories about family troubles to be interesting and if they can be worked in successfully in comic book or sci-fi stories successfully, they become all the more interesting.
Even if the story isn’t the most original (like a lot of the MCU movies), the film has a great supporting cast to help sell all of it. Some of my personal favorite characters include T’Challa’s sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) who basically serves the major technological expert in Wakanda working with the kingdom’s most valuable resource Vibranium. I know some out there found her annoying but I found her antics where she teases her brother amusing and she was actually useful in the film. There’s also the no nonsense head of Wakanda’s female warriors named Okoye (Danai Gurira) who not only kicks her fair share of ass but also has a great gag where she stops a rhino dead in its tracks just by standing in front of it. And there’s also Martin Freeman as CIA Agent Ross who gives T’Challa and his allies a hand at the end of the film.
As always with any MCU movie, Black Panther is a very well made with a good combination of CGI and practical effects/sets as well as action scenes that are exciting, comprehensible don’t wear out the viewer and actually feel like they belong in the plot. I also liked that this film has a good balance of humor and drama. All of the MCU entries from last year I felt had too much humor. It left me questioning that if those movies didn’t really take what was going on seriously then why in the world should I have to? Fortunately, the jokes and visual gags (such as the aforementioned rhino stopping) are all put in at the right moments and don’t upstage scenes of tension.
There were several problems that I had with the film that kind of prevented me from liking it more. The first is whole thing involving Wakanda’s most valuable resource which is the aforementioned Vibranium. I understand it is a metal that can be used in weapons, armor, buildings and such but as the film progressed it seems to be able to do everything. It is even used to heal people, seems to be used in holographic technology and a whole slew of other uses on and possibly off screen. At some point I began to ask myself if there was anything that Vibranium couldn’t do. I just couldn’t wrap my mind on how that material alone made Wakanda far more advanced than the rest of the world for a very long time. I can buy that when it crashed on Earth it would affect plant life and such which would produce the special flower that gives Black Panther powers among other things but I just don’t buy how its uses are seemingly unlimited. They don’t seem to point out its limits in the film that I’m aware of.
Next, the third act feels rushed. When Killmonger finally comes to Wakanda, fights T'Challa for the throne and does other things that lead to the climax, it all seems to come in the third act. This felt a bit strange to me because one would usually expect Killmonger to come in around the second act to present himself as a real challenge to T'Challa, show that he is someone not to take lightly and and build up tension and a sense of danger for the final act. But, again, Killmonger coming and doing all his villainy stuff in Wakanda comes all in the third act and thus feels too quickly resolved by the end. It also didn't help that the Avengers: Infinity War trailer played before the movie and Black Panther is in that one so nearly all possible tension was taken away before the movie began. Nice job, Marvel.
And this maybe a nitpick but how in the world does Wakanda stay a secret for so long? Yeah, I know the kingdom is hidden science fiction technology and such but we see at the beginning of the film that other tribes and nomadic peoples in Africa see the Wakanda transport ship and even wave as it goes by. Is Wakanda a kind of public secret in that region of the world? You would think that tons of rumors would circulate worldwide about the true nature of Wakanda and that would lead even the CIA (Again, Ross works for them) to be suspicious of it before even talking to Andy Serkis about it in the interrogation scene. Heck, how did this country even stay a secret from the Avengers or even SHIELD especially with all the technology they had from before and especially after the battle of New York and such?
Over-hyped? Perhaps. Overly politicized? Absolutely. Overrated? Maybe. All I know is I actually had a heck of a time watching Black Panther and looking back on it I should have probably watched this one after the dud that was Pacific Rim Uprising. I would have left the theater in a better mood in that scenario. Skip Pacific Rim Uprising and even if you have seen Black Panther already see it again or heck just stay home and watch Black Panther director Ryan Coogler’s previous film from 2015 Creed (which also stars Michael B. Jordan) or the first Pacific Rim. You won’t be bored with either of those.
