Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, the Nostalgia is Real

I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit biased when writing this review. Pokemon has been a huge influence in my personal life and my career so I can’t help but glance over some glaring flaws in the movie but here we go.

The movie is based off of the spinoff game, Detective Pikachu that takes place in the fictional city of Ryhme City where pokemon battles and even pokeballs are banned. Right off the bat I was a little confused on that rule - a pokeball is a transportation device that helps you carry your pokemon team in places that might not allow pokemon to openly roam (or can’t fit to roam). Finding an apartment in a city can be hard if you have a dog, I can’t imagine the difficulty to find a place that would allow a Gyrados or a Charizard to live in the apartment let alone how much the ‘pet’ deposit would be.

The movie introduces the character Tim who in his youth was an inspiring Pokemon trainer but after the death of his mother, he gave up the dream and became an insurance adjuster instead. After a failed attempt to capture a pokemon, he receives a call from the police department that his detective father died in a car crash. A train ride and some exposition via a tour guide video later, he arrives in Rhyme City and the audience is greeted to one of the coolest shots in the entire movie. The city is bustling with people, pokemon and the some of the greatest depictions of world building I have seen in cinema. The visuals the movie portray Ryhme city as something similar to the city streets of the Blade Runner movies but with a much happier, lighter tone demonstrating what life could be if Pokemon existed.

Tim gets the keys to his father’s apartment where someone is waiting for him at the entrance and the audience is introduced to one of the most useless characters in the movie, Lucy. Her dialogue is so cringey even for a kids movie that I felt embarrassed that everyone else had to hear her speak. Lucy tells Tim that she is investigating the death of his father but admits shortly after she’s not really a reporter but an intern for a local news channel that leaves the question of why is she pursuing this story in the first place. Tim brushes her off and goes into his father’s apartment alone.

Now this is where the story really picks up - after pouting for a few minutes about the death of his father, Tim investigates a sound coming from the living room and discovers a lone Pikachu wearing a detective hat. However this isn’t just any Pikachu, this Pikachu can talk but only Tim can hear him. In the world of Pokemon, the creatures are only able to barely speak their own name but 90% of the time they just making animal noises. It is implied they can understand human language but can’t communicate it back - this is why the talking Pikachu is such a shocker to Tim.

It is revealed that the talking Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) is Tim’s father’s pokemon and mysteriously survived the car crash and the body of Tim’s father was never found. Tim begrudgingly agrees to help Pikachu solve the clues to his father’s accident and why Pikachu can’t remember the accident. The duo is lead to multiple locations during the investigation such as a trendy coffee shop, the news channel studio where Lucy works, an underground Pokemon battle pit and a secret science facility outside of the city. Out of all the locations the team travels to, by far the best is the underground fighting ring. As a fan of the brand, Pokemon battles are the best thing about the franchise and I love that the movie gave the audience a taste of what a live action pokemon battle would look like.

I don’t want to get too much into spoiler territory as I usually do when reviewing movies but simply put, the ending has like four twists back to back that eventually gets a little tiring. I can kind of understand why Pikachu says this in the movie at one point:

Pros

What the movie did best was how well they fleshed out the pokemon characters. I heard some people complain about how horrible the live action adaption pokemon look like but I know from first hand knowledge that The Pokemon Company is extremely strict on how each character can be portrayed and how to look like in certain media. People complain that the fleshed out versions are not as gritty and real as they should be but that’s because the Pokemon Company doesn’t want gritty realism in the movie, they want the most honest depiction without sacrificing their cartoon counterparts.

I really enjoyed how the movie was able to creatively portray what a world would look like if humans lived side by side with Pokemon and the unique challenges that world would have.

What really made the movie however was Ryan Reynolds. Honestly, if it wasn’t for him I believe the movie would of been a huge flop. His voice acting was fantastic and really brought great depth and personality to Pikachu who in the past typically only said Pika Pika. The jokes he made really lightened up the mood to certain scenes and added much need flavor to others.

Cons

Maybe it’s because I had high expectations however I hated the script. The dialogue was just terrible and I hate when people say ‘it’s a kids movie, let it go’. Saying that a movie is targeted towards kids doesn’t give it a pass when it comes to writing. Disney and Pixar are able to make fantastic movies targeted towards children but have a well written script too. Why Pokemon failed in this department is beyond me.

The actor who portrayed Lucy was terrible. I heard from a fellow fan that the reason why her dialogue and acting was bad was because it’s similar to the dialogue you would read in a Pokemon game. If that’s true, there will only be a handful of people who would come up with that reasoning. Justice Smith who played the main character Tim was...ok? He wasn’t great in any length but I have to remind myself that he is a kid actor who had to imagine he was talking to a yellow rabbit 90% in front of a green screen. Green screen actors are hard to come by but I hope that this is just the first step into a more successful movie career.

Plot got super complicated towards the end. It wasn’t anything as complex like Inception however for a kids movie this is one thing a screenwriter should dial down. If kids can’t understand what’s going on, they won’t pay attention and when it comes available on DVD, they won’t want to rewatch it.

Overall

I’ve seen this movie twice - the first time I felt let down on how poorly written the movie was and how awful Lucy was as a character but after the second viewing, my expectations were lower and I was able to enjoy it more. Yes there are flaws in the movie but as a fan for life, I applaud that Pokemon has been able to make the most successful video game movie in history and I look forward to seeing the sequel.

Grade: 7/10