#13: Pokémon Detective Pikachu

Video Game movies as a whole have had a hard time appealing to both casuals and players. "Doom" was serviceable and not really any good.

"Assassin's Creed" was allegedly hilarious.

"Warcraft" was fine, though 90% of it went over my head, despite a friend explaining everything as it was happening.

(They walked into a void?)

But this is my territory now - I'm no newcomer to the world of Pokémon.

My first games were Gen 2, specifically Gold. Then I went back and got Red, Blue, Yellow, and I've been playing them ever since. I still have my 'gold' plated Pokémon cards in their Pokéball holders from Burger King from 1999.

Though, I was far more interested in this movie than I am in Sword and Shield. British Pokémon land? Cool. Hope Scorbunny doesn't turn into fire/fighting type in it's last evolution!

Sitting at 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, "Detective Pikachu" is just appealing enough to the general audience to not leave them lost in Viridian Forest.




This didn't feel like a Pokemon movie; A blessing and a curse. For a good portion of this movie, the Pokemon are not front and center. They're hardly the focus of scenes.

They look relatively real. These creatures get the benefit of mostly not being based off of real creatures, so they don't look like children in costumes (Hi, Sonic).

Pikachu is plum adorable and I love him.

It's nothing that would confuse a non-fan for the most part except for two specific instances, one in which they outright spell out for the audience.

A lot of people had qualms with Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu but I thought he was fine. Glad to see Justice Smith has a better movie to be in than "Fallen Kingdom". His bit with Pikachu and Mr. Mime is especially impressive.

There is something to be said on why a Japanese property didn't have a Japanese protagonist. I understand.

I was so thrilled to see that the lead was a black guy (And there's something to be said about colorism too but...no. Not today.)

They could have cheaped out and given us white guy of the month as the lead but they didn't. It's a big gesture.

They really did Kathryn Newton a disservice by making her every annoying trope of cub reporter ever. 

Rhine City is mostly grey, and most of the Pokemon don't pop out against the landscape. For one particularly innovative action sequence, it makes sense, and I suppose it's to make the world feel like it naturally houses the pocket monsters.

It felt extremely depressing and grey to me for about the first 30 minutes. Pokemon is about exploring and adventures with your pal! Yes, there are dark elements, but starting off so sad is ... not what we love about Pokemon.

Multiple times while watching, I thought "This is way too serious for a movie about a talking electric mouse."

The plot is really, ridiculously over complicated...but it does pull a lot from Generation 1 -

The story around Cerulean City and Cerulean Cave.
A father abandoning his protagonist son to spend time with Pokemon.
Girl with Psyduck.

(Spoilers)


Evil rich people.

The villain's plot doesn't make a ton of sense. In wanting "everyone to be their best", he plans to take away all agency of them as people and implant their minds into that of Pokemon, because Mewtwo can do that now with something they farm from it.

The villain is disabled (This is going to cause some articles, I can tell you), and switches his consciousness with Mewtwo (Who they've captured against its will) and does the same to the citizens of Rhine City.

The only thing they'd really have to change was his reasoning. "Turn everyone into Pokemon and I'll be Mewtwo, the only one who can talk and think like a human."

Also; Mewtwo hiding Harry until Pikachu and Tim found him but putting his soul into Pikachu...why? Bill Nighy knew Harry was still alive and told Tim to find him....why? To find Mewtwo as well? 
(/Spoilers)


I'm a fan of the games, and I didn't like "Detective Pikachu" as much as I wanted to. I wanted to see more Pokemon front and center and a plot that didn't feel as if it was built to confuse fans and casuals alike - but I did enjoy it a great deal.

It takes elements from the original games and makes a new story. I can see how they can make a sequel, even based off of the ending.