Stream It or Skip It: ‘Pacific Rim: The Black’ Embraces Its Dark Monster Movie Roots With a Slick Anime Sequel

Netflix’s Pacific Rim: The Black follows siblings Hayley (Gideon Adlon) and Taylor Travis (Calum Worthy), who find themselves struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic vision of Australia. It’s been ravaged time and time again by the massive and destructive kaiju, the giant monsters introduced in 2013’s sci-fi adventure Pacific Rim. After a mass but ultimately failed evacuation of Australia, some survivors remain, and the rest fell to the kaiju. Those left behind after the arrested evacuation languish for five years, and Hayley and Taylor stumble upon a dilapidated Pan-Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC) facility underground. There, an abandoned Jaeger called Atlas Destroyer lies in wait. Hayley and Taylor wrestle with piloting the Jaeger across The Black, the desolate, barren wasteland stretching across Australia, in a bid to find their parents as well as salvation.

PACIFIC RIM: THE BLACK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An amalgamation of news reports interspersed with the seismic activity seen across Australia appears on-screen. We see brief flashes of cities on fire and the kaiju that have ravaged them, along with humanity’s Jaegers, or the massive mechs constructed to combat the enormous, Godzilla-like monsters. This really is humanity’s last hope, and the situation doesn’t appear that it can get much more dire.

The Gist: After some particularly ominous news soundbites play over a map of Australia being brought to its knees, we see the human side of the monster invasion. Kaiju rampage indiscriminately throughout an Australian city, smashing buildings and crashing through manmade structures.

It’s a relief to see a Jaeger show up, usually piloted by two people: “drift-compatible” individuals, which in layman’s terms mean they work well together. In this situation, we see husband and wife Ford (Jason Spisak) and Brina (Alexandra MacDonald) working in tandem in their hulking mech to take down a kaiju. Right in the middle of their scuffle, as Ford and Brina work to save a bus of individuals vacating the area, including their young children Hayley (Camryn Jones) and Taylor (Bryton James).

They’re told to get to Sydney any way they can, despite the fact that people are still evacuating. The pilots press on in battle, eventually defeating the kaiju they’re locked in battle with, but they have their marching orders from their superiors. They must leave and press on, though that means they must abandon the entire group of survivors they worked to save — including their children. They promise they’ll return, a wistful gesture as they’re forced to retreat.

Spoiler alert: They don’t return. Five years later, their now-older children Hayley and Taylor have different ideas about what they should be doing with their lives. While running a camp for survivors in the Shadow Basin area, the pair is torn over their next moves. Hayley is optimistic about finding their parents, but Taylor is focused on Jaeger training and wants to remain in place to stay as safe as possible. There’s plenty of tension brewing between them as they fight for what they personally believe is right.

Everything changes when Hayley falls through a hole in the ground that reveals a lost and forgotten facility belonging to the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC). It’s an interesting find all its own, but there also happens to be one major hope for salvation there: an abandoned Jaeger. It’s called Atlas Destroyer, and though it’s a training model, it’s still fully functional. With the help of its AI named Loa, Hayley and Taylor have uncovered a beacon of hope to help them escape the predicament they’ve remained in since losing their parents.

Immediately after booting up Atlas Destroyer, the pair are met with a massive kaiju. The pair battle their way out of the predicament, but they’re left shaken, and potentially worse off than before. Ultimately, they make the decision to set off across “The Black,” or the area of Australia essentially decimated by the kaiju. Atlas Destroyer needs a new power cell, they run into another dangerous kaiju, and just about everything in the world to bring them down. But they soldier on, despite it all. Nothing is going to keep them from getting to safety — and hopefully finding their parents.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The massive Jaegers will immediately call anime mecha series to mind, like that of Neon Genesis Evangelion, thanks to its serious tone. There’s also shades of the Gundam franchise seen throughout, though Gundam pilots typically have more humanoid enemies to face throughout their violent encounters. In some moments, there’s even some shades of cult classic anime The Big O, namely in how the Jaegers are designed.

Our Take: Pacific Rim: The Black is a shockingly good take on the traditional mech versus enormous kaiju tales we first saw in the franchise’s first film, Pacific Rim. This 7-episode series takes the source material and runs with it, deepening the lore and eliminating much of the schlock and silliness that permeated our first brush with Jaegers.

The stakes are higher, humanity is more desperate, and things are more bleak than ever before. In a real-life situation where this might happen, there wouldn’t be time for smiles or merrymaking, not when there’s a huge monster destroying your city, and the rest of the world. So when you see a whole bus full of refugees being left behind because they may die otherwise, it hits hard. You or your family could have been in the same situation following a similarly catastrophic event — not kaiju, of course, but a natural disaster? Absolutely.

The show gives you quite a few characters to invest in as soon as it kicks off, as you wonder both if you’ll ever see Hayley and Taylor’s parents again, or if they’ll manage to find safety in their dilapidated, weapon-less mech, the Atlas Destroyer. Even the typical teenage angst Taylor displays doesn’t begin to wear on your nerves. It’s rough living in a post-apocalyptic version of the country you once called home without your parents, after all.

It’s all set to gorgeous animation that brings the Jaegers and kaiju to life across some thrilling environments and setpieces. While human animation, like most CGI anime, is hugely lacking, it’s forgivable given that the rest of the show looks so good. The humans need higher frame rate to not move so awkwardly, and oddly enough look best when viewing the show at 1.5x its normal speed. Thankfully, the voice cast is fantastic, and each actor a great fit for their roles.

The creators could have turned to the same hokey, overdone camp so many seem to enjoy Pacific Rim for, but the grittiness exhibited here feels right, natural, and appropriate. It feels like the result of what could have happened if Pacific Rim were turned into an anime series to begin with. There are only a few short episodes to learn about this world and facts about kaiju that the movies never began to uncover, and you’ll be left wanting much more as soon as the credits roll on the first installment.

Sex and Skin: None to be found here. It’s the apocalypse. There’s no time for anything like that when massive kaiju are stomping around, after all.

Parting Shot: A knock-down, drag-out kaiji battle comes to an abrupt end as the attacker falls to its apparent death from the edge of a cliff. Hayley finds the corpses of others among some wreckage as she blames herself for their deaths. While the siblings enjoy a brief moment of stillness from their Jaeger’s cockpit, Taylor swears they’re going to find their parents, and then they’re going to get the hell out of there.

Sleeper Star: While Ford and Brina work to stave off kaiju from attacking the survivors they’re trying to rescue, another Jaeger, Marauder Oblivion, steps in to fend off an advancing straggler. The Jaeger is quickly defeated. Pilot Zeus inside, who knows the odds are against Marauder Oblivion, steps in for the greater good of humanity anyway. Marauder goes down for good, but not without a fight. As a result, Ford and Brina are able to get their children and other survivors to safety before going off to find help.

Most Pilot-y Line: As Brina kneels to give her Taylor a pair of sentimental dog tags before leaving her children behind, Taylor asks pointedly “What if you don’t come back?” Brina responds “Nothing will ever keep us from you. Not ever.” A tearful Taylor asks her to promise, which Brina naturally does. Brina and Ford may as well have signed their death warrants, or at least foreshadowed an entire series without them in it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. After the awful Pacific Rim: Uprising, the Pacific Rim franchise needed something to further legitimize its place as one of the last great Western monster movie franchises. Pacific Rim: The Black certainly has a few missteps here and there, with some wonky animation, but it’s a great, world-expanding look at concepts and monsters that audiences who loved the original film can easily fall in love with. Opting for anime storytelling is the cherry on top, as it offers a medium that feels just right for the franchise’s lore. If you’re into mechs and monsters, Pacific Rim: Black feels like a no-brainer. You’ll eventually get over the CGI weirdness, as you typically have to do with many of Netflix’s anime originals.

Brittany Vincent has been covering video games and tech for over a decade for publications like G4, Popular Science, Playboy, Variety, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, GameSpot, and more. When she’s not writing or gaming, she’s collecting retro consoles and tech. Follow her on Twitter: @MolotovCupcake.

Watch Pacific Rim: The Black on Netflix