A few years ago, we got a
Pokemon game that was very different to the usual battling, training and exploring games that we have all come to know and love. Instead it was a game all about investigating a whole array of issues that humans and Pokemon face. I played and reviewed that game and felt it was OK but nothing like the more superior
Ace Attorney and
Professor Layton games. Despite this and the reviews it got which were mixed to average, it somehow led to a film being made based around it which was unintentionally foreshadowed by certain critics who felt that it was like the anime in a way. Now as we all know, there have been many
Pokemon films made over the years and the majority of them have been connected or based on the anime where we fans are led to believe that Ash Ketchum is 10 years old for the entirety of that series (we are not stupid and we will catch on to these things eventually). So normally I would be doing a series review, but I felt to not do it this time as
Pokemon Detective Pikachu brings a lot of firsts to the film side of the franchise. Its the first live action film of the series, the first to be distributed worldwide but not domestically by Warner Bros. since
Pokemon 3: The Movie which was released in 2000 and although not the first one in the UK to be given a PG rating, it is however the first to get such a rating in other parts of the world. Its also the first one to have big names like Bill Nighy and Ryan Reynolds in the cast whereas before its largely been the cast of the anime with some other voice actors. So yeah best reviewing this alone and maybe I will review the others on a later date even though I haven't seen every single one of them at the time of writing this up. So let's go and see some Pokemon:
The film is focused on Tim Goodman (this time played by Justice Smith) an insurance salesman who journeys to Ryme City upon learning that his father had been killed. There he learns of people living alongside Pokemon thanks to the efforts of one Howard Clifford (played by Nighy) and comes across a Pikachu (voiced by Reynolds) with a cap who speaks perfect English with only Tim understanding him. The pair of them have a shaky start, but soon learn of plans to change humans and Pokemon forever and work together to stop these plans from coming into fruition as well as to find out the truth behind the case around Tim's father.
The film surprisingly remains faithful to the game while also being like your traditional
Pokemon film with epic battles, stunning visuals and the like. Each of the Pokemon in the film look very recognisable in an instant with most being the ones everybody knows along with a few unfamiliar ones too. It also shares some connections to the anime such as references to previous events and sometimes hearing the theme being played or sung from time to time. Its not a perfect film as it does have a plot that could have been improved on just a little bit. But it has a good cast, plenty of Pokemon doing what they do best and a better and more satisfactory ending when compared to the game. Fans will enjoy it. People who don't know
Pokemon all that well will find this to be very accessible to them (something that the first anime film failed at) and seeing as this technically is a video game film, its one of the few that's actually pretty good. Not perfect, but good nonetheless. 8/10
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