Geekatana Movie Review: Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

Video game to movie films have a long line of bad reputation. Titles like Doom, Resident Evil, Street Fighter and the likes entertaining as they have a tendency fail to live up to the video game they are based upon so when a movie based on Pokemon comes along you can't help but have low expectations. The trailer promising as it seems isn't really that reassuring. And abomination of a trailer that was Sonic the Hedgehog certainly isn't helping any either.

I am not a fan of Pokemon and my knowledge of it stems from a few matches of playing Pokemon Arena. Not to mention I can only name at the most five Pokemon right on the top of my head. But still the trailer intrigued me enough to go see it and I won't hold the movie down cause of my lack of Pokemon knowledge.

The story is about Tim and Pikachu suddenly finding themselves teaming up to unravel the mystery surrounding Tim's father. The unlikely due find themselves mysteriously able to communicate with each other and through this unique bond find themselves entangled in an adventure much bigger than they thought it would be.

The movie is surprisingly good. Way, way, way better than the trailer showed it to be. One of the major issues I had going in was Pokemon was a game about catching, training and fighting pokemon but this movie ups the ante to go up and beyond it in surprising manner. This movie has the perfect mix of comedy, action and story that gives me hope for video game movies. I wasn't expecting much going in but this movie blew my expectations and more.

If you like Pokemon you will love this movie, if you want a movie with a story worthy of a detective ala Bladerunner you will love this movie. Kids will like this for the cute pokemons but teenagers and adults will find something as well. There's hardly any boring moments from beginning to end. When the movie is over I found myself wanting a sequel.

Some of the plot twist are predictable but some just grabs at you out of nowhere specially around the third act where things get really serious to the point that it got a bit too dark that I was worried one of the kids or parents in the theater might have issues with it.

Justice Smith nailed the role. His acting here is way better than when he did Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom. The banter between him and Pikachu is one of the best parts of the film. Pikachu does sound like Ryan Reynolds in the movie but you tend to ignore that as the movie goes as you will easily find yourself engaged in the scene and story of it all. The side characters are also surprisingly fun specially Mr. Mime and Psyduck.

Visually the movie is something Super Mario wished it could be. You can clearly show this in the trailer but the movie delves into this more. All I can say is this is like a Pokemon version of the Gremlins but with more Pokemon and a lot more cute in some ways. It has the right mix of fantasy and realism.

The sound fits perfect on the film. If you are a fan of the Pokemon anime you can pick off certain tunes easily. The film  won't win any awards for anything groundbreaking both in the story or visuall department but what Pokemon Detective Pikachu has is clearly one of the better video game to movie adaptation ever put to film and is clearly at least a Top 5 for me.

The movie is littered with Pokemon nostalgia and references that I'm sure hardcore fans will love. Sadly on my part I can only name at the most five of the Pokemon shown on screen without their name being mentioned in the film like Snorlax.

The movie was based on a game of the same title and I'm not sure how much of the film was lifted off the game if ever but I'm not going to add or deduct movie score points on the film since I have yet seen or played said game to make a decent comparison.

Sadly I do have some issues with the movie as the characters do fall into character archetypes and are often a bit too cartoony. If you have seen the a live action Scooby Doo film you will know what I mean. Also some scenes could probably have been shorter while some should have been longer but I guess they wanted to show more Pokemon or more world building than I think was necessary.

Pokemon Detective Pikachu is certainly an easy recommendation to Pokemon fans and those somewhat familiar with the franchise. The story is nothing new and the visual isn't something that hasn't been done before or better. This film is based on a kids game about catching pocket monsters (Pokemon) and to be able to get this much story and fun out of it is already a win in my book.