Pacific Rim: Uprising Review - 3 Ups & 7 Downs
Downs...
7. It Disrespects Most Of The Original Characters
One of the best things about the first movie was its diverse cast of characters: their personalities helped add a lot to what was an incredibly simple B-movie at its core, but in this sequel a lot of that is sadly thrown to the wind.
For starters, Charlie Hunnam's prior protagonist Raleigh Becket isn't even mentioned, perhaps in order to preserve him for an inevitable third movie should he decide to come back.
Far more offensively, though, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) returns for basically a glorified cameo, and though Newt (Charlie Day) has a bigger-than-expected role, his character is steered in an extremely dumb direction (even for the standards of this series).
No spoilers here, of course, but the committee of four screenwriters took a major gamble with Day's character and it didn't really pay off. The result is more baffling than endearingly stupid, and along with Kikuchi's curtailed role, suggests those who wrote this film didn't really understand what made the first one work so well.