Monster of the Day #1710

Updated on March 26, 2018 By Ken Begg 14 Comments

Except for Black Panther, early 2018 has been a bit of a bloodbath at the box office, with high profile films like Red Sparrow and Lara Croft dying on the vines. Now Pacific Rim Uprising has joined that group. Perhaps it will be bailed out by foreign receipts, but again, only Marvel seems to have it figured out right now.

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    I honestly never got anything out of the first one. Didn’t really care when a sequel was announced, then cancelled, then reinstated.

  • Gamera977

    I thought about going to see it but it started snowing and I stayed home the whole weekend. It has a score of about sixty on the IMDB and the fans on Rotten Tomatoes. Wish it were higher but still it’s a matter of taste. This is the only movie I’ve actually been looking forward to all year.

  • Acethepug

    Not sure if you like superhero movies, but “The New Mutants” is coming out in April, and they definitely shot and wrote it with a horror take. I am hopeful it will be good — and for anyone who knows old NM lore, I believe it is a take on the “Demon Bear” saga.

  • Gamera977

    Thanks! Not a big fan of superheroes outside of the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ films but that with a horror twist does sound interesting.

  • Flangepart

    Pacific Rim had it’s moments. Mostly with Ron Perlman. Still, the FX were good. Oh, there’s a sequel?

  • Eric Hinkle

    “You act like you’re Ultraman? Oh, please. I’ve met Ultraman. I fought Ultraman. I took a wa-satch to the face from Ultraman, and believe me, you’re no Ultraman.”

  • zombiewhacker

    Cost of ILM Special FX in your Pacific Rim movie? $100 million.

    Distributing your Pacific Rim movie to theaters worldwide? $50 million.

    Having Ron Perlman star in your Pacific Rim movie? Priceless.

  • Gamera977

    Well, went to see it last night. And it was fun! It did conform to most of Ken’s Elements of the First Sequel (from his Jaws II review) but I really liked it. I loved the original and this was a drop in quality but still well worth watching if you liked it. Frankly guys if you didn’t like the original it goes without saying skip this, it’s more of the same but not as good. Just when I look back it doesn’t really have the great memorable scenes in it like Gypsy dragging the cargo ship down the street and using it as a club that the original had.

    I loved the plot, it didn’t rehash the original but didn’t go out to subvert expectations by undercutting it (Disney Star Wars- I’m looking at you). There was a small retconn but otherwise it’s a logical outgrowth of the events of the original.

    Characters were pretty bland and forgettable. It could have really used a character like Perlman’s from the original. Newt (the goofball scientist) had most of the better lines but still he was no Perlman. John Boyega actually got to play a friggin’ bona-fide hero this time around and not a stormjanitor. I did really like that the two major butthead characters when the manure hit the windmill came around and ended up being productive team players instead of blocking the heroes all though the movie.

    Few things I really did not like. I won’t elaborate for fear of spoilers. I hated Scrapper, stupid idea in the first place and stupid use of it in ending. The final team looked like rejects from the movie version of ‘Ender’s Game’. A genius scientist who’s the CEO of a giant corporation played by a 30 year old or so Chinese actress who looks and dresses like a fashion model. A few others here and there, still personally I’ll pick it up on DVD, and might go see it again. Very little social justice nonsense, or politics, just a fun romp from beginning to end.

  • Acethepug

    Sorry, I just read New Mutants will be delayed a while — extensive reshoots and two new characters added. I really was hoping to see this just after my birthday :(

  • JJ Gauthier

    *SPOILERS*

    I really hated that they killed off Mako Mori, far and away my favorite character in the first film, right in the first act without her actually doing anything. I hate it when movies kill of one of the main characters of the last movie in the first act, especially if they didn’t even get to do stuff. So the movie just got on my bad side early, and made it a lot harder for me to forgive the blank characters and such.

  • JJ Gauthier

    There are a couple of other hits:

    Peter Rabbit took advantage of the lack of early family films and crossed $100 million on a $50 million budget. With foreign, it’s already in the black.

    Game Night (an actually good studio comedy!) is doing solid business thanks to good legs.

    12 Strong, while not a smash, kept its war action to $30 million (and was quite impressive for that), and thus did all right.

    This weekend, Ready Player One should do $50 million and I’m guess will end up being Spielberg’s first movie to cross $200 million in a decade. (I saw it at South by Southwest. It’s pretty good — third tier Spielberg, but that’s still better than 90% of everything else out there, and definitely delivers on the action, the visuals, and the geek goods without getting obnoxious about it) I also saw next week’s A Quiet Place at SXSW, and it’s terrific, and I think it will be a big hit.

    But Black Panther is rightly the movie of the year at this point, and will likely remain so.

    (man, given that I probably only comment here once or twice a year, this feels kinda long!)

  • Ken_Begg

    Surely BP will be overturned by Infinity Wars. It will be a very good year for Marvel.

  • Gamera977

    I’ve been reading piles of comments trashing ‘Ready Player One’ as empty nostalgia. Thanks for your view, I’m interested in what other posters here think of it when it hits nationwide.

    The only trailer I saw before ‘PR:U’ that even looked interesting to me was ‘Rampage’. Honestly it looks so insane it might be pretty good.

  • JJ Gauthier

    Worldwide, definitely. Domestically, I’m betting Infinity Wars will follow the Star Wars trilogies in the third film making more than the second but not quite as much as the first, which will let it slide just under BP.

    But we’re talking about how many thousands of dump trucks of cash Marvel is bringing in, so it is kinda moot.