Pokemon Detective Pikachu movie review

MOVIE TITLE: Pokemon Detective Pikachu: Special Edition (DVD)

RATING: PG (This is the first Pokemon movie to be rated PG.)

LENGTH: 1 hour 44 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: B

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Some profanity by Pikachu and “mild” name calling
Some rude and suggestive humor
A destructive car crash
Humans and Pokemon in perilous situations
A man has his shirt open and you see a lot of tattoos
Destruction and explosions
Some people break into a lab
You might have to explain to young kids what amnesia is
We’re probably going to see a resurgence of merchandise and interest in the video games like Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!

IN A NUTSHELL:

First of all, I can’t believe we haven’t had this video game/card game/Anime turned into a live action movie sooner. It has been 19 years since Pokémon 3: The Movie. When Pokemon Go became ridiculously popular a few years ago, the franchise green-lighted this live-action movie and Warner Brothers Pictures won the prize. My kids were fans many years ago and still are. They’re not the only ones. When the first trailer for Pokemon Detective Pikachu: Special Edition (DVD) hit social media, over 100 million viewers watched it within 24 hours.

You can expect action, battles, humor, and Pokemon cuteness, but what surprises is the excellent balance of goofiness with heart.

THEMES:

“Magic brought us together and that magic is called HOPE.” – Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds)
“Second chances are special things, kid.” – Pikachu
Hope
Family
Friendship, trust
Courage and fear
Feelings

THINGS I LIKED:

Fun world-building features. The city scenes look like America with a Tokyo makeover. The CGI is really great. I’ve always loved humans interacting with animation.
I would have never matched Ryan Reynolds’ voice with Pikachu, but here we are. Ryan Reynolds offers the sass and comedy of Deadpool but as a softer version to keep the movie PG and family-friendly. His entertaining performance really saves and makes the movie.
Justice Smith does a good job as Tim Goodman, although his character is super grumpy and whiny. I just watched him again last night when my hubby and I re-watched Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
I love the reverse aging CGI used in so many films nowadays. It was fun to see Bill Nighy as a young man. I loved him in About Time.
I always get a kick out of movies that reference other movies. In this film, “Angels With Filthy Souls” is mentioned, which is a pretend movie that Kevin watched and acted out in the movie Home Alone.
People often leak movies on to YouTube, which happened the day before Pokemon Detective Pikachu: Special Edition (DVD) hit theaters. What’s funny is that it only shows a minute of the actual movie and then 45 minutes of Pikachu dancing. ha ha
Did you know they actually have a Pokemon World Championship? They used some of the audio from the 2018 event in Nashville in this movie.
Did you know there are over 800 Pokemon? Only about 60 are featured in this movie though. Still, that’s a lot!
Adorable Pokemon and cuteness overload.
Karan Soni always makes for an entertaining side character.
I hadn’t seen Kathryn Newton in anything before, but you may have seen her in Big Little Lies – Saison 1 – DVD – HBO on HBO.
The mime Pokemon sequence cracked me up.
Cute ending with you-know-who..

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

I readily admit that all of the Easter eggs from the video games are completely lost on me. I’ve never played them, even though my kids were obsessed. One of my sons is now a video game artist at Blizzard!
The human characters aren’t written very well and most of them are kind of annoying.
The plot is kind of stupid.
As a parent, I was glad when the movie ended. Just sayin.

FUNNY LINES: