Pacific Rim Uprising: Deserves to drown

Pacific Rim Uprising (2018) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for relentlessly dumb and noisy sci-fi violence, and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

Godzilla has a lot to answer for.

So does Guillermo del Toro, basking in the reflected glow of the Academy Awards now resting on his mantel.

When an entire squadron of giant robots goes berserk, only a handful of cadets — notably
Amara (Cailee Spaeny, and do note her wind-swept hair) and Jake (John Boyega) — are
in a position to prevent Earth's complete annihilation. Can they succeed, against such
overwhelming odds? Is there really any question?

Because we must remember that he brought us Pacific Rim, back in 2013. And if that film hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t now be suffering through its soulless, brain-dead sequel.

It’s important to note that del Toro always has had an affinity for grandiose monster movies, which he demonstrated with his two Hellboy entries, and even as far back as 1997’s Mimic. (Needless to say, The Shape of Water also is a monster movie.) Del Toro has a knack for finding — and somehow making credible — the emotional center of even the craziest premise; he also knows how to add just the right amount of humor to a formula that requires an equally precise blend of tragedy and triumph.

In short, we care about the characters in del Toro’s films, human or otherwise. We get involved.

Nothing — and nobody — in Pacific Rim Uprising elicits even a shred of interest. This isn’t a film; it’s a global commodity, assembled with calculated coldness by corporate bean-counters ticking all the little boxes.

Multi-national characters? Check. Disillusioned soldier who finds his inner hero? Check. Plucky young girl? Check. Eye-rollingly dumb dialog intended to facilitate bonding? Check. Jealousy in the ranks? Check. The destruction of vast cityscapes? Check.

First-time big-screen director Steven S. DeKnight can demand — and obtain — the most whoppingly, prodigiously colossal beasties and human-powered mechanical warriors that today’s special-effects money can buy, but the result has no more emotional significance than we got from watching two guys in rubber suits bash each other, while striding amid the balsa-wood cities of 1960s Godzilla flicks.

The reason? This film’s script — credited to DeKnight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder and T.S. Nowlin — is strictly from hunger. Not content merely to be a perfect example of the idiot plot — which lurches from one scene to the next, only because each and every character behaves like an idiot at all times — it also boasts some of the clunkiest, most laughably atrocious dialog ever conceived.

With only a few exceptions, the performances are stiff and unpersuasive, the line deliveries so wooden, they warp. And the landscape-devastating battle sequences go on, and on, and on, and on ... as if DeKnight hopes to win us over by sheer brute force.

The Great Wall: Great fun!

The Great Wall (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fantasy action violence
By Derrick Bang

According to report, this film cost $150 million.

Rarely will you see money spent so well. Every dollar is visible on the screen.

As a monstrous assault threatens to overwhelm the Great Wall's resident army, Lin Mae
(Jing Tian) and her most trusted warriors — from left, William Garin (Matt Damon),
Strategist Wang (Andy Lau) and an Imperial Guard soldier (Cheney Chen) — lead a
small unit in a stealth mission, hoping to out-flank the creatures.

Mayes C. Rubeo’s costumes alone probably stretched the budget to the limit. If she doesn’t win the 2017 Academy Award for costume design, there is no justice.

The Great Wall is one of the fabled “cast of thousands” sagas that we’ve not seen for decades. Director Zhang Yimou’s period adventure is a stylish, rip-snortin’ thrill ride that hits the ground running and never lets up: an exciting and thoroughly entertaining blend of Aliens and 1964’s Zulu, with the athletic grace of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

It is, and well deserves to be called, a true epic. And we also don’t get those very often, these days.

Granted, the deliberate inclusion of Western actors — apparently essential, to court the all-important American market — is a bit of an eyebrow-lifter. Placing Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal in 12th century China, with little more than a token explanation of how their characters could have gotten there, is quite contrived; no surprise that this film’s six (!) credited scripters didn’t try hard to explain it.

But once beyond that hiccup, the story zips right along; Zhang paces and choreographs the complex action sequences with the authority of a master conductor. That’s no surprise, coming from the director who similarly entertained us with Hero and House of Flying Daggers, along with equally compelling “straight” dramas such as Raise the Red Lantern and The Flowers of War.

Even the establishing tableaus are breathtaking, as cinematographers Stuart Dryburth and Xiaoding Zhao traverse the expanse of John Myhre’s production design. We’ve not seen world-building on this scale since Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

That comparison is apt for another reason, since Damon’s amazing bow-and-arrow skills can’t help evoking fond memories of Orlando Bloom’s Legolas.

The story begins with a prologue of sorts, as William Garin (Damon) and his quintet of battle-scarred mercenaries attempt to outrun a much larger desert tribe. Our mercenary heroes (?) have come to Northern China in search of a fabled “black powder” that is capable of making great weapons.

They successfully escape, camping down for what they hope will be a restful night. But they’re suddenly attacked by an unseen something that quickly eviscerates all but William and Pero Tovar (Pascal). William manages to hack a limb off the beast, which then plunges to its doom down a deep canyon. But the severed claw is terrifying in its own right: huge, reptilian and unlike anything they’ve ever seen.