Pacific Rim Uprising isnt great, but it still clobbers the Transformers movies

PACIFIC RIM UPRISING (Steven S. DeKnight). 111 minutes. Opens Friday (March 23). See listing. Rating: NNNAs far as movies about.

PACIFIC RIM UPRISING (Steven S. DeKnight). 111 minutes. Opens Friday (March 23). See listing. Rating: NNN

As far as movies about clanging rust buckets go, the Pacific Rim franchise can at least boast its superiority to the Transformers series. In the sequel to Guillermo del Toros love letter to mechas and kaijus, giant robots smash with considerable more pizzazz than in Michael Bays series, and they do so in nearly half the running time.

Del Toro has since moved on from the series (serving here only as producer), and he takes his singular geeky and affectionate touch with him. Now we have frantic pacing, an overstuffed plot and the sequels burden of excess. This time the mechas, here dubbed Jaegers, are battling other robots, more kaijus and a few crossbreeds.

Director Steven S. DeKnight keeps things shuffling along but his big, busy and clunky movie would be nothing if it werent for star John Boyega cracking wise in his own British slang.

I never understood why Boyega had to adopt an American accent for his Star Wars character Finn. The actor who we discovered with all his bruvs and innits in Attack The Block never seems as comfortable in a galaxy far, far away, burdened with disguising his spiel while Daisy Ridley (or Alec Guinness before her) never bothered. Boyega has to do no such thing in Pacific Rim Uprising, and hes a lot more enjoyable as a result.

Playing the wayward pilot son to Idris Elbas apocalypse-preventing Stacker Pentecost, Boyega is loose and charismatic. Whether hes acting opposite scrap metal or Clints son Scott Eastwood (who makes the wood in his family name stand for something), Boyega can take the rote comic bits in the script and use his own swagger to liven things up.