'Pacific Rim Uprising' is a big, noisy, cheerfully dumb monsters-and-robots sequel

If you could hear anything over the extraordinary din of clashing robots and monsters in 2013's "Pacific Rim," you might have made out the sound of the heroic fighter Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) bellowing the movie's signature line: "Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!"

Alas, he also wound up canceling himself, sacrificing his life to save Earth from being destroyed by mammoth Kaiju invaders. That explains his sad absence from "Pacific Rim Uprising," a bland, efficient, cheerfully witless sequel in which the apocalypse turns out not to have been canceled, just postponed.

Elba isn't the only "Pacific Rim" original