I am a huge fan of the inventive yet simple first film. It is a guilty pleasure of a film that includes giant robots and monsters, but has enough development of characters that I have something to latch onto. It also helps that Del Toro's imagination helps build not only some fantastic beasts, but a great world to have the action focus on.

This sequel, while almost stand alone, doesn't have as much in any of those departments. The characters are pretty flat. The relationships between the characters are barely developed (like between Pentecost and Lambert, or Pentecost and Amara). The film lacks any heart or soul to it. Yes, there is lots of action, lots of Jaegers fighting Kaiju, but it almost feels rote. While the fight scenes in the original film are masked in night and rain, the fight scenes in Uprising take place mostly in the bright day light. I figured that would make for something exciting, but the action mostly falls flat. Maybe, it's because there aren't any memorable touches in the fight scenes like the original such as the Newton's Cradle or the funny items falling out of cargo containers used as weapons.

Even with this said, I did enjoy the film for what it is, a film that aims high, but falls quite short of its original. The film is carried by John Boyega whose charisma makes the film very watchable. The casting of newcomer Cailee Spaeney was also great, she has a future ahead of her. I didn't much care for Scott Eastwood who doesn't emote anything other than "stern" or "annoyed".

The story for the film was pretty thin, except for the twist which sets off the big fight in the third act. I actually thought the twist of [spoiler]flipping Newt to be the bad guy was brilliant since Newt is the last guy I would think could be a bad guy[/spoiler].

I do wonder what happened to some of the other characters that survived the original film. What happened to Raleigh Becket? How come he's not with Mako Mori who shows up in this film? How come Herc Hansen is not leading the Shatterdome? And where in the hell is Hannibal Chau? The script doesn't bother to fill us in on these interesting characters from the first film.

The score was taken over by Lorne Balfe and was fairly forgettable until he uses Ramin Djawadi's original Pacific Rim theme in the third act.

Let's start with what I liked about Pacific Rim:Uprising:
- John Boyega was good, better than I was expecting honestly. Cailee Spaeny's acting was enjoyable too.
- The story, while nothing exceptional, was interesting enough. It had a nice twist that I thoroughly enjoyed.
- The CGI and VFX were definitely better than the first one. Less shaky-cam too.

Now for what I did not like:
- While I said above that I liked the story, I felt there was too much of it. The movie would probably be better off deleting about 30 minutes of the first half.
- Not enough Kaiju. While the JaegerVSJaeger battles were nice, they were not what I was looking for in this movie.
- The young pilots didn't add much for me. I felt they gave the movie a kind of Ender's Game vibe, which it did not need.
- The overall artistic style lost the dark and rainy aesthetic that I really loved about the first one.
- Scott Eastwood was not good. Super generic character.
- The Jaegers (and the Kaijus, to a lesser extent) lost the weight they had in the first movie. They felt so light, punches didn't have the same impact.

Overall, it's definitely an enjoyable movie, provided you know what you are about to watch. It definitely targeted a younger audience than the first installment. As a result it felt more like "Transformers: Now with some Kaijus" to me, losing the appeal that made Pacific Rim such an enjoyable movie.
If there will be a third movie like they hinted at the end, please put Guillermo DelToro back on the director's seat and give him carte blanche.

[spoiler]The small Jaeger rolling away like a ball was so dumb[/spoiler]

The characters in this movie are so bland and cookie-cutter that Rinko Kikuchi (as Mako Mori) seems Oscar-worthy. Not sure why John Boyega is as big of a deal as he is and Scott Eastwood looks like his Dad, so there's that. The group of cadets in this movie are sickeningly spunky and angst-y. Only ten-year olds could possibly be interested in them.

The story is dumb and even with all the ridiculous tech on display, I still refuse to believe the feisty teenage cadet (Amara) could have designed, much less assembled, her Jaeger "Scrapper". When Jake and Amara are reentering Earth's atmosphere inside of a red-hot Gypsy, why didn't they burn up? The front shield is busted out. The city destruction action loses all of its impact because the jaegars themselves destroy skyscrapers with reckless abandon. Something else lost is scale. The jaegars and kaiju are big but the shots of them are too tight. Pull the camera away from the city and show the beasts from a distance (like the shot of Surtur destroying Asgard in "Thor: Ragnarok").

The quality of the CGI effects were definitely better than most movies, and the jaegar designs are inspired. The kaiju creations were few and far between and were not the focus of the action as in Del Toro's original. I have to give an extra star for a twist that occurs with a main character that I didn't see coming.

I'm a big fan of giant monster movies, even though they are usually pretty bad. "Pacific Rim: Uprising" is better than the worst of the genre, but the choice to make it super kid-friendly has pretty much leveled the world Del Toro created.

Transformers with some thought actually put into it! Plus, the always scrumptious Scott Eastwood always welcome. Yowza!

This movie is, to me, a quite nice special effects extravaganza. In some ways I actually liked this movie more than the first one.

Sure, the underlying story is totally ludicrous. Come one, fighting giant monster with big clumsy robots that requires two people in some strange mind melt to maneuver is just ridiculous. Just send in a couple of fighter jets with some suitable devices that go boom and be done with it. But then, the purpose of these movies are to show off giant robot special effects and on that note they certainly deliver.

This installment in the franchise seems to be more geared towards the younger audience as far as the story and the cast goes. Some people like it, some don’t. Personally I’m fairly neutral.

As with the previous movie the story is not really that much to write home about. It has plot holes big enough to drive I giant robot through. I just had to say that didn’t I? Still, there are some parts of this story that I liked better than the first one. It is a quite straightforward story with clear heroes, clear bad guys.

It does not really have any of that lazy stupid plot twist where some dumb ass politicians are trying to shut down the program to save money. Sure the program is in some danger but this time it is due to a new program that actually sounds reasonable and could improve things. Of course said program gets sabotaged but hey, we, the audience, want our big silly robots right?

The story is also mostly devoid of any stupid SJW crap or silly green preaching. The ridiculous crap about Dinosaurs being the first invasion and that we had terraformed the planet (global warming and all that stuff) so a second invasion was more likely to succeed was just an insult to the more intelligent among the audience and took off a star or two from the first movie for me.

On the whole I quite enjoyed the movie. It delivered where it counts, that is in the special effects department. Loads and loads of special effects mostly involving giant robots and Kaijus slugging it out with massive property damage as a result. They are literally beating each other up with skyscrapers for Christ sake!

The story, acting and everything else is adequate. Nothing more and nothing less. I do miss some colorful characters like Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) from the first movie. The characters in this one was more bland that has to be said.

It seems like a lot of people on IMDb and elsewhere have their pants in a twist over this movie and rates it one or two stars out of ten. That’s just nonsense. A one star rating is for a movie that is truly awful in all aspects. The special effects alone elevates this movie above one star. You might not like the turn towards the younger audience or something else in the movie but it still does not make it a one star movie.

Sure if you are not a science fiction or fantasy fan and do not care about special effects then I guess you could feel this is an awful movie but then why did you watch it in the first place? It is the second installment in the franchise so it should come as no surprise that the movie lives and dies by it’s special effects.

I would say that if you like giant robots, monsters and special effects and don’t mind a fairly thin story aimed for the slightly younger audience then there is a fair change that you will find this movie entertaining.