Pacific Rim: Uprising
Universal Pictures | Release Date: March 23, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 45 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
28
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
The Associated PressMark KennedyMar 21, 2018
It may not be nuanced, but it taps into something mythical — ferocious monsters rising from nowhere to be battled by 21st century swordfighters. And it’s exhilarating. Read full review
81
The VergeTasha RobinsonMar 22, 2018
For viewers who are still impressed by CGI destruction and thrilled by the sight of realistic mechas in action, Uprising is yet another escalation in scale, staged creatively and with apparent love for the old-school kaiju genre. Read full review
80
The New York TimesGlenn KennyMar 21, 2018
The movie balances amiable humor and standard believe-in-yourself bromides with better than average action sequences. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaMar 21, 2018
Uprising’s script isn’t great at jokes or nuance or originality, but it’s pretty good at shuttling us from one set piece to the next. And when those set pieces are good — as is the case with an early Jaeger fight in Siberia, or the gee-whiz silliness of the climactic battle in Tokyo — it’s easy enough to overlook. Read full review
65
Vanity FairJordan HoffmanMar 21, 2018
The first half of Pacific Rim Uprising is about as fun as a trip to the dentist. The second half, however, is a dizzying and delightful foray into enjoyable pandemonium. It’s like the laughing gas really kicks in. Read full review
65
IGNLucy O'BrienMar 20, 2018
Pacific Rim Uprising is a loyal, if unremarkable, successor to the giddy original. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 21, 2018
Monster-movie fans will certainly get their money’s worth in this one. Read full review
60
Screen DailyDavid D'ArcyMar 20, 2018
Some of the most fun in Uprising comes from its elder statesmen, holdovers from Pacific Rim who play for laughs. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'HaraMar 20, 2018
These Mark 6 Jaegers with their electric whips, “gravity slings” and plasma swords deliver all the giant robot thrills you could wish. Thanks to Boyega and Spaeny, you might even care about the human characters, too. Read full review
60
UproxxMike RyanMar 20, 2018
Pacific Rim Uprising is a dumb movie that knows it’s a dumb movie and just tries to show you a good time and doesn’t needlessly bog us down with too much character development or exposition because it knows we don’t really care. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramMar 20, 2018
Respectable. Boyega adds real bounce and DeKnight delivers spectacle, even if the plot doesn’t strain too far from the original’s crash-bang formula. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsEthan SacksMar 20, 2018
DeKnight shows he can pilot a CGI fight sequence as well as his predecessor, Guillermo Del Toro (“The Shape of Water”). These movies can be fun once the colossal foes start grappling. They’re even more fun with fewer explanations and more explosions. A movie about massive monster-fighting robots doesn’t need so much engineering. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeMar 20, 2018
It might drift out of the memory just as easily as it drifted in, but there’s a goofy likability to Pacific Rim: Uprising, a primal thrill to be had, and a confident slickness behind it that means, despite a nearly two-hour running time, it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Read full review
60
Time OutMichael GingoldMar 20, 2018
There’s a directness and swift pace to the first hour or so that works on an elemental level, and the final act is a delirious sugar rush of city-smashing spectacle (in Tokyo, of course, which has been evacuated to avoid any pesky collateral damage), delivering precisely the goods the movie promises. Read full review
58
The Film StageDaniel SchindelMar 26, 2018
Pacific Rim Uprising is a mess, but when it gets to the business of robots beating up monsters (or sometimes other robots), it’s a blast. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 24, 2018
Like most unintended second installments, this one is superfluous – a remix of moments, scenes, and images from its predecessor infused with the need to make everything bigger and louder. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittMar 22, 2018
Eastwood, who spends much of Uprising squinting like his dad, Clint, plays buttoned-up straight man to Boyega, a dynamic that's initially grating yet finds its legs in the monster-punching stuff later. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMar 22, 2018
Pacific Rim Uprising...is an unquestionably dumber, slighter, less fully realized piece of work than its predecessor. It is also 22 minutes shorter and, though no less committed to an aesthetic of shattered glass and pulverized steel, a rather more endurable experience on the whole. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMar 22, 2018
The cast is filled with actors doing everything they can to make their characters as memorable as possible even when the script (credited to four people) isn't lending them the support they deserve. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoMar 21, 2018
Still, not to put too fine — or juvenile — a point on it, a bigger problem is that there’s nothing but ’bot-on-’bot mayhem until the climax, when familiar ugly heads are reared over Tokyo. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 21, 2018
Unfortunately, as Pacific Rim Uprising wears on, the monsters and the machines take over — not the world, but the movie. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 21, 2018
It’s better than a “Transformers” movie. Is that damning with faint praise? I’m not sure it’s praise at all. But it is true. Pacific Rim Uprising is, at least for about half the movie, better than a Michael Bay exercise in eardrum shattering. The sequel isn’t as good as the original, however, which probably isn’t a surprise. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 21, 2018
Uprising is loud, packed with impressive effects and propulsive — or as propulsive as a car with no brakes going downhill — but it lacks the heart of del Toro’s original. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyMar 21, 2018
Simply put, it lacks its predecessor’s curiosity about its world—its fascination with colorful backdrops and machines. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 21, 2018
Whenever Pacific Rim Uprising gives itself the chance to do something fresh or unique or original, it passes up that opportunity to embrace the cliché. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJake ColeMar 21, 2018
Steven S. DeKnight's film lacks for Guillermo del Toro's visual acumen, but it makes up for that with an energetic sense of chaos throughout its front-and-center skirmishes, and in the end hedges closer to the nightmarish intensity of such inspirational texts as Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 21, 2018
Pacific Rim: Uprising may be not be much, but in the spirit of the film itself, let’s be realistic. It’s better than any of the “Transformers” movies, and shorter. Read full review
50
Paste MagazineTim GriersonMar 21, 2018
Pacific Rim Uprising’s jokey tone fails to leaven the movie’s leaden clatter, and so any attempt on Boyega’s part to be heroic feels a bit shrouded in irony. But at least he registers: Eastwood may be even duller than Charlie Hunnam was in the first installment, and Spaeny plays the spunky Amara with maximum attitude and a paucity of charm. Read full review
45
The AtlanticDavid SimsMar 22, 2018
Once Pacific Rim Uprising reveals the means by which the kaiju might return, I was briefly delighted; there’s one strange twist that’s perfectly executed. But quickly enough it was time for 30 minutes of competent, clanging CGI action, and my brain turned right off again. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMar 20, 2018
If you enjoyed 2013’s Pacific Rim but secretly wished it was more like a vapid Transformers sequel, then you’ll love Pacific Rim Uprising. Everyone else can give this heavy-metal howler a hard pass. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 20, 2018
A generic and diverting sequel that corrects some of the original’s biggest mistakes while also highlighting some of its more eccentric charms, “Uprising” drops us into a world that’s much richer than what the previous film left behind. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 12, 2018
Watching del Toro’s film felt like playing with toys as big as skyscrapers, but everything about this successor feels trinket-sized. Read full review
40
VoxAlissa WilkinsonMar 22, 2018
What’s most interesting about Pacific Rim: Uprising isn’t the movie itself — it’s how the cause of the impending apocalypse has evolved from the first to the second film, and how that maps onto apocalyptic stories more generally. Read full review
40
ScreenCrushMatt SingerMar 21, 2018
The first half of the film setting up the characters’ meager backstories and conflicts is boring. The second half is livelier but dumber, with the kaiju rising yet again from the depths of the Pacific to rampage through some extremely computer-generated cityscapes. There isn’t a single second where anything involving the jaegers or the kaiju looks real. Read full review
40
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMar 20, 2018
My dad took me. He was a film critic and he’d already seen it for work, but then he took me opening weekend and fell asleep while I watched it. He did that a lot. But I think he liked it. I guess he wouldn’t have gone to see it again if he didn’t. What kind of idiot does that? Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMar 22, 2018
With all due affection, del Toro is the fantasy world’s Quentin Tarantino – his originality rests in how meticulously and enthusiastically he repackages the work of others. DeKnight has no such goals; he can’t even be bothered here to ape del Toro’s imitation game. Read full review
38
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMar 22, 2018
Tickets to Pacific Rim Uprising should come with a package of aspirin. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 21, 2018
Action-packed and impressively stupid. Read full review
33
ConsequenceAllison ShoemakerMar 21, 2018
Uprising plods around like the giant robots that occupy so much of its space, moving too quickly to let almost anything resonate emotionally, but not quickly enough to lend much of an adrenaline rush. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovMar 22, 2018
Utter rubbish compared to its 2013 precursor. Enter with low expectations and you might just have some rock ‘em, sock ‘em, let’s-ravage-Tokyo fun. Read full review
30
VarietyNick SchagerMar 20, 2018
Pacific Rim Uprising delivers plentiful CG mayhem.... What it lacks, though, is both del Toro’s trademark Lovecraftian imagery (all slick tentacles and dank subterranean locales) and the sense of thunderous heft that the Mexican auteur bestowed upon his titans. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckMar 20, 2018
Lacking the stylistic flair provided by del Toro in the original, this sequel directed by Steven S. DeKnight (TV's Daredevil and Spartacus) becomes increasingly tiresome in its cliched plotting and characterizations, hackneyed dialogue and numbingly repetitive, visually incoherent action sequences. Read full review
25
The PlaylistDrew TaylorMar 20, 2018
At its best, Pacific Rim Uprising is tedious and mildly diverting, but at its worst it feels like an out-and-out betrayal. Read full review
20
TheWrapDan CallahanMar 20, 2018
Pacific Rim Uprising has zero emotional pull. Read full review
12
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 22, 2018
This is Transformers-level inanity. This is a blow to your head from a mallet. It will not make you feel like a 10-year-old, but it will make you feel 10 years older than when you first entered the theater. It is certainly not personal in any way, shape or form, just strictly chilly, corporate to a fault and somehow both chintzy and wildly overblown. Read full review
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