It seems Pacific Rim is just one of those movies that should never have gotten a sequel but did, thanks only to its box office potential. Uprising, the second installment, has become this franchise’s own monster, crawling out from under the ocean to terrorize the crowds who never asked for it to do so.

Aside from being terribly contrived, it moves sluggishly through the first two acts, working on a fragile story that takes too long to come together before its climactic monster battle. One of the key players, a young yet skillful Jaeger pilot-in-training (Cailee Spaeny), tries in vain to tug at the heartstrings with her clichéd tragic backstory, which felt too much like bait rather than raw emotion.

Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the star of the show, is the criminal son of a legendary Jaeger pilot and war hero, whose sister’s death, along with a sense of his own failure, spurs him on the road to redemption. Boyega’s character is the only one who feels real. He tries his hand at a motivational speech late in the film, and while it doesn’t quite feel earned, it’s genuine and heartfelt.

With the big scary monsters thought to be gone, Uprising needed a compelling human villain to bring them back. Instead, they got Charlie Day, who plays the eccentric and tonally all-over-the-damn-place Dr. Newton Geiszler. He, along with the slew of supporting characters thrown into the mix, can’t offer much to the overall effort.

There is actually a bit of a reward if you can make it to the final act. Enter the big scary monsters mentioned earlier and a team of gargantuan fighting robots to take them on. Their showdown, Uprising’s primary selling point, is big and loud and dumb and probably very expensive for the studio, but it is rather exciting and fun to watch. Too bad it’s a slog to get there.

This Pacific Rim sequel is largely dull and cluttered, but at an hour and 50 minutes, it’s actually shorter than the majority of films in the recent sci-fi/action genre, which works in its favor. It’ll earn some laughs, but it definitely thinks it’s funnier than it is. The story is kept alive somewhat by visual effects, but more importantly, by Boyega’s spirit and commitment, which, luckily for the film, is boundless. Unfortunately, brilliant actors can rarely save bad movies.

Uprising didn’t fade away into nothingness without teasing a third installment. Depending on this weekend’s box office performance, it should probably go straight to Blu Ray.

Sails: 2/5

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