POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU

DIRECTOR

Rob Letterman

WRITER

Dan Hernandez

Benji Samit

Rob Letterman

Derek Connolly

CAST MEMBERS

Ryan Reynolds

Justice Smith

Kathryn Newton

Ken Watanabe

Bill Nighy

MOVIE PLOT

The movie is based on the Pokemon Franchise created by Satoshi Tajiri with its story directly adapted from the 2016 Pokemon Video Game, Detective Pikachu. The story follows of Tim Goodman played by Justice Smith who went to Rhyme city, a place where Human and Pokemon alike are living harmoniously together and to investigate his father's death with the help of his father's Pokemon, Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds.

REVIEW

As a life long Pokemon fan, I have been dreaming of this day to have a live-adaptation of a Pokemon movie. There's been so many Pokemon Anime films that have been released which I have also watched and this is the first time we get to have a live-adaptation treatment. The idea of having a live-adaptation of Pokemon movie still bewildered but after watching it now, I will say that they really worked it out.

Rhyme city from the movie is like my life-long dream of a city where Pokemon and People are living together. The visual effects of each of these Pokemon were really stunning to look at. I've seen renditions of Pokemon artwork from different artists what would seem to be their interpretation of Pokemon in a real-life world and some of them were really scary and horrible to look at. I really liked the movie's visuals of these Pokemon and they have made a hell of a job of faithfully adapting their looks from the anime. Their looks from the movie didn't felt too cartoonish and they were still able to put some details to add some realism to their looks. This is the biggest problem of the Pokemon franchise of why it took too long for them to adapt a live-action film considering the Pokemon looks would look so different and yet the staff and the crew of the movie really knocked it out of the park. The movie ended my doubts about a Pokemon live-action movie and it really paved the way for future movies involving around the Pokemon universe.

I think the tricky thing that would play a big factor of this movie is that Nostalgia feeling. If you've been a fan of Pokemon starting from the Gameboy series till the Anime, I think you would certainly like this movie compared to those who have been recently introduced to Pokemon due to the mobile game "Pokemon Go". For non-casual fans they will certainly have a hard time to relate to some of the Pokemon featured from the movie cause most of them are mixed through-out the 7 generations of Pokemon. However, it's not to say that this movie doesn't have any flaws. The movie did a good job in terms of the Pokemon's look but in terms of the story, I did have some problems with it. The story progression was a bit slow at first and some of the scenes felt to me was unnecessary to have. I didn't quite like the climax of the movie and that part felt to me was rushed or it just didn't click to me. There are a couple of elements from its story that also surprised me but I just didn't like how the story was built-up. The performances from the leads were also great especially to Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu. It may reminded you of his other character Deadpool but tonally speaking, it's quite different from it and it made the film so much fun to watch.

OVERALL

POKEMON: DETECTIVE PICKACHU will certainly pleases the Pokemon fan for its faithful adaptation of the Pokemon. Non-casual fans may have a hard time relating to the film but there are some funny and emotional moments from the story. There are some issues that I found to it but it doesn't make the film any less. I still enjoyed the movie and if you're a fan of Pokemon, it's certainly not a let-down. Pokemon franchise has a very rich lore if you're going to base it from the Anime movies or even from the Gameboy games. Now they could focused more to the actual Pokemon tournaments and even go further to the ancient lore about the Legendary and Mythical Pokemons. There are so many source materials that they can borrow and play with. We're in a time that movies are now involving in universes/franchises and I'm glad Pokemon will have its own universe to build.