Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Pacific Rim: Uprising 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

If you can't beat 'em, merge with 'em.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 13, 2018

Pacific Rim wasn't exactly a surprise success. Combining huge special effects with the moviemaking muscle of Guillermo del Toro, the visionary director behind films like Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water, the movie had "hit" written all over it. While not making quite as much as some of its similar contemporaries -- Godzilla and the increasingly worthless Transformers films -- it turned a good profit and demonstrated that, in the right hands, high tech digital action on a massive scale could actually work within the confines of a good story and worthwhile characters. While Pacific Rim: Uprising looks much the same, it doesn't feel much the same. Rookie Director Steven S. DeKnight's sequel is loud and large but it lacks the heart and narrative excellence of its predecessor. It hits all the right buttons when it comes to action and special effects, and the character's aren't completely cookie-cutter, but it cannot find, never mind maintain, any semblance of depth, content to just use the down time to build toward the next opportunity to shower the screen with visual delights and bombard the audience with aural mayhem.

It's been a decade since the Kaiju war was won. Most of the world has recovered, but the telltale signs of the ravages remain. Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of the legendary war veteran Stacker Pentecost, lives a life of pseudo-luxury in an abandoned mansion while scavenging Jaeger tech and trading it for life's little luxuries. Meanwhile, a young girl named Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) has used spare Jaeger parts to create her own, shrunken-down mech she calls "Scrapper." She and Jake find themselves on the run from the law, are eventually caught, and are drafted into service to help pilot a new, advanced wave of Jaegers. Under the watchful eye of veteran hotshot pilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), they become accomplished Jaeger operators, and just in time: a new, and more advanced, Kaiju threat emerges, shattering the decade-long peace and testing the new pilots and Jaegers in a majestic, and deadly, clash of the titans.

Pacific Rim: Uprising is made of a standard arsenal of genre archetypes: the disgraced former pilot (who is also a legacy), the handsome group leader, the raw young genius, and an appropriately diverse collection of interchangeable secondary young bloods who serve no other purpose than to pilot a few of the extra Jaegers. The plot is likewise trite, pretty much cobbled together from a slow, predictable, very routine script…”unimaginative,” one could call it. After the team is put together, after new Jaegers are introduced, the film just mechanically moves into its obligatory action scenes. Sure its big, fun, and loud, but nothing about the movie comes as a surprise, nor does it pursue any kind of narrative depth. It’s pure escapism, superior to Transformers at least with a more balanced approach to its humor, but it’s also just a generic sight-and-sound spectacle, lacking the depth and sharpness of the original. Even the action scenes fail to feel special. They’re just a collection of crashes and destruction with predictable, tired, and trite “poses” thrown in that aim to up the “cool” factor but that instead just suck any and all semblance of an identity from the movie.

Pacific Rim: Uprising 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

Pacific Rim: Uprising was reportedly digitally photographed at resolutions of 2.8K and 3.4K and finished at 2K, which is standard operating procedure for an effects-heavy movie, and they don't come much effects-heavier than this one. Though it's "just" an upscale, the UHD's 2160p resolution presents the movie with a command of fine detail and clarity that's noticeably superior to the 1080p Blu-ray. As per standard Blu-ray/4K review procedure, the film was first viewed at 1080p with a near-immediate subsequent viewing at 2160p, and right away the UHD's superiority is evident. There's a clearly defined bump in textural integrity, image clarity, and raw detail definition. That extends to every element, practical and digital alike: humans and manmade environments, holograms, flesh-and-blood monsters, or mechs. The UHD reveals character pores, facial hair, sweat, and blood with an added precision, depth, and clarity that is not to the level "revelation" -- the Blu-ray is plenty good in all of those areas -- but certainly to the point that the increases are very welcome and even sometimes critical; once one has seen the UHD, it's hard to go back to the Blu-ray. Likewise, mechs (and notably battle-damaged parts) as well as Kaiju (both organic and cyborg) showcase an increase in clarity to all of the large-scale surface area goodness with a welcome refinement to the small-area details that are not lost at 1080p but that are certainly less dynamic and intense. One of the drawbacks is that there's an occasional feel of artificiality to the image, a sort of plastic-y sheen evident even on human actors, but such intensely clear scenes are not a fatal flaw, just a little jarring, at times.

The 12-bit Dolby Vision color enhancement also provides a healthy increase in color saturation and intensity. While there's no fundamental differences in terms of essential, core color presentation, there's an added brilliance, stability, and nuance that compliments the movie's often vivid visuals -- holographic readouts, Kaiju blood, Jaeger colors -- and essentially supercharges the fun. Look at an image at the 1:08:38 mark. The intensity of the bright near-white electrical beams converging towards the center of the screen is much more significantly vibrant and clear on the UHD. The extended battle near the end is a treasure trove of Dolby Vision goddess -- Jaegers, Kaiju, blood, holograms, weapons, and all of the bright, sunshine-lit area locales -- and is practically of reference quality. The visual dynamics extend to improved skin tones and black levels, too; the latter are refined and dense, smooth and deep without crushing detail or pulling too bright. Noise is more refined on the UHD as well. There's very little room for complaint with anything the UHD accomplishes. It's practically every bit the reference-worthy disc as is its predecessor.

Pacific Rim: Uprising 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pacific Rim: Uprising's Dolby Atmos soundtrack: not bad. The track struts its stuff right form the beginning. Impressively large, buoyant music, easy-come surround integration, and superbly authentic tinny reverberation inside the dense, metallic, abandoned jaeger facility all converge into a gloriously detailed presentation that takes full advantage of every square inch off speaker real estate offered to it. There's a remarkable precision to every sound effect in the movie, each one perfectly engineered for precise volume, placement, and careful attention to dynamics as they relate to any given location, situation, or circumstance. Action scenes deliver a steady stream of surround-intensive and booming effects. While bass does not reach the pinnacle of potent, there's no denying the track hits hard, spreads wide, and absolutely saturates the entirety of the stage with a precision of positioning that's essentially second to none. Perhaps more so than any single uni-position sound, it's the track's ability to handle movement that is its highlight point. Projectiles rush through the stage with both speed and depth, and the top end is used effectively; a tumbling Jaeger at the 62 minute mark seems to actually fall into the stage from the top down. Flying craft move through the top layer in chapter 14. The final, extended action scene is never shy about sending objects, large and small, slow or fast, through every speaker with uncanny precision that perfectly aligns with the on-screen action. Light ambient effects are pleasantly complimentary of the movie, and dialogue remains always true with clarity, positioning, and prioritization all in perfect working order.

Note that the DVS track found on the Blu-ray is not included on the UHD.

Pacific Rim: Uprising 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Pacific Rim: Uprising's UHD disc contains the full compliment of extras on the UHD disc. They also all appear on the bundled Blu-ray. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase.

• Deleted Scenes (2160p, SDR, 6:56 total runtime): Alt. Party James Gunn, Amara Arrives at Shatterdome Part 1, Amara Arrives at Shatterdome Part 2, Amara Meets the Cadets, Jake & Nate Discuss Jake's Return, Amara Meets Liwen, Newt and Alice, and Kaiju Brain from Fury. With optional commentary from Director Steven S. DeKnight.
• Hall of Heroes (2160p, SDR, 3:25): John Boyega introduces and narrates a brief overview of the Jaegers featured in the film.
• Bridge to Uprising (2160p, SDR, 4:39): Cast and crew discuss the concepts and themes that propelled the franchise from the first film to the second.
• The Underworld of Uprising (2160p, SDR, 3:47): Essentially an overview of character origins and qualities and the beginning of the film.
• Becoming Cadets (2160p, SDR, 5:58): An overview of a few of the film's secondary characters.
• Unexpected Villain (2160p, SDR, 5:48): An exploration of the film's surprise human villain.
• Next Level Jaegers (2160p, SDR, 5:08): Another piece that explores the film's new Jaegers. It also looks at Jaeger concept work, the technical work necessary to bring them to the screen, and the process of fitting them in an appropriately sized environment.
• I Am Scrapper (2160p, SDR, 2:42): A brief exploration of the miniature Jaeger known as "Scrapper."
• Going Mega (2160p, SDR, 3:21): A short examination of the film's Kaiju.
• Secrets of Shao (2160p, SDR, 3:14): A quick look at one of the film's key characters.
• Mako Returns (2160p, SDR, 2:08): A short look at the character's return for the sequel.
• Audio Commentary: Director Steven S. DeKnight delivers a well-versed commentary that touches on much of what was explored in the featurettes but greatly expands on film structure, story, production, performances, presentation, and much more.

Pacific Rim: Uprising 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Pacific Rim: Uprising is a perfectly serviceable special effects film. It's light on character and story but for anyone wanting big and loud, this will certainly fill the bill. Universal's UHD delivers, unsurprisingly, first-rate video and audio. A generous allotment of extra content has been included, too. Fans can buy with confidence.