Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)
Directed by Rob Letterman
Based on Detective Pikachu by The Pokémon Company
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
In a world where people collect Pokémon to do battle, a boy comes across an intelligent talking Pikachu who seeks to be a detective.
My Opinion:
Oh man. When did this come out? A few weeks ago? I already barely remember it so am not sure what to say. The main thing to say is this: This movie is for Pokémon fans and Pokémon fans ONLY. The movie will gain no new fans. It’s not a very good film. If you absolutely love Pokémon, you’ll probably get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing so many of the characters. If you know nothing whatsoever about Pokémon, watching this will be a complete waste of your time.
Let’s see… What do I know about Pokémon?! Not much. I’m old so it’s not from my era. However, I have a young kid who was the right sort of age when Pokémon Go became a thing so she was a fan for a brief amount of time. Okay, I admit that I got into it a bit too. Okay, okay… I admit that I still have the app, although it doesn’t get opened all that often. Annnnnd…. okay, maaaaaaaybe I was the one who kind of pushed the kid into going to this film with me as she has sadly outgrown stuff like this. What can I say? I like Ryan Reynolds but I love Pikachu. Pikachu is adorable. Screw all those other weird-ass looking Pokémon! Pikachu is a great character. This is why there’s an entire damn annual festival dedicated to Pikachu in Japan. Not gonna lie – that looks adorably fun.
Um. This movie. Yeah. It’s a weird one. It’s sort of aimed at the original now twenty-something (or would they be 30?!) fans but is also very much a “kiddie” film. It’s too silly to be fully embraced by those who aren’t hardcore fans. I think my daughter was mostly bored. I could tell she was thinking “I’m too old for this shit!”.
I have almost no knowledge of Pokémon beyond playing the app sometimes so I know this movie isn’t aimed at casual or non-fans anyway. Pikachu talking is strange. The boy, Justice Smith, is perfectly fine but the love interest, Kathryn Newton, is annoying. Why am I still talking about this movie?! There’s nothing really wrong with it and I didn’t hate it (I enjoyed it more than my kid!). It was just a bit boring. Pikachu is still adorable, though. I guess it’s just a shame that the film couldn’t have been aimed at somehow attracting new fans while still keeping the original fans happy, but I’m sure that’s a hard balance to achieve.
My Rating: 5.5/10
Cinema Parrot Disco 