And then the first trailer appeared, and I'll admit I was convinced of the potential. These were the kinds of designs I was hoping for. Some worked better than others (I don't think there was much that could work for something like Jigglypuff), and while the fur may have been overkill in some of the designs, these were a lot closer to the traditional designs then what I thought would happen. You could easily tell what species each Pokemon was. It was a good sign for the movie. Did it stick the landing though?
To get the basics out of the way first, ignoring the Pokemon coat of paint, this is a basic mystery movie akin to the Scooby-Doo stories. After learning of his father's "death", Tim Goodman travels to Ryme City (a city with no trainers, where people and Pokemon work together, which is somehow different compared to all the other places in the Pokemon world not counting the continents in Mystery Dungeon?) to sort out his father's belongings, but encounters a Pikachu that was his father's partner Pokemon. While most people hear a normal Pikachu, even bringing the voice actor from the anime and games to do the lines, Tim can hear the Pikachu talk like Ryan Reynolds, who tells Tim that his father may still be alive but he has amnesia so they need to recover the trail that Tim's father was on to find him and solve the mystery of the Pikachu's memories, leading to an underground battle scene with Pokemon steroids made by extracting blood from Mewtwo (who is the same Mewtwo from Mewtwo Strikes Back, even though there are Mew fossils in Ryme City? Or is this the Mewtwo from Pokemon Adventures, as we do see a version of Red in this movie?). Turns out the Underground battles were a test for the steroids called R, to allow the villain to take over Mewtwo's body and use a power that they made up for Mewtwo to bring it's power up to something resembling modern Legendary Pokemon to... turn Ryme City into an industrialized city from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon... well at least he's a Pokemon villain because he thinks he knows what's best for the world and needs to use the power of a Legendary Pokemon to do it. By the end though, Mewtwo is free, purple Mewtwo blood gas is gone, and Tim's father is restored, with Tim deciding to stay in the city to become a detective.
As stupid as it is at times, especially with the villain's plan, I can't really fault it for what it is. It's a Pokemon murder ish mystery movie with a plot that feels like it belongs in the games. While I know this is based on the game Detective Pikachu, apparently that one never finished its story, and the Switch port will have a different ending. There's something wholesome about the insanity of it, it feels like the team behind it wanted any excuse they could come up with to put more Pokemon into the movie just for the sake of it. "We need action set pieces for this movie! Ok, how about... a chase through a building while running away from a pack of angry Aipom, then going to an underground fight club where Blastoise fights a Gengar, Pikachu fights a Charizard, then a gas explosion causes a Magikarp to evolve into a Gyarados and flood the building in rage. After that, we can have a scene where Mewtwo is breaking out of the lab, followed by Greninja in the lab being used to try and cover up the true reason for the lab, followed by gigantic Torterra causing earthquakes as they stand up to stretch their legs!". While a lot of the important scenes have a focus on pokemon from Generation 1, what I appreciate about the movie is the nice mix of Pokemon from Generation 2 all the way to Generation 7 decorating the scenes, making the world feel more alive. The best comparison I can make is to the Harry Potter movies (fitting as the same team brought the Pokemon to life), where they would throw in magical creatures whenever they could, though here it's arguably overdone. There aren't many scenes that don't have at least one Pokemon in it. Though I could nitpick about some designs (bloody hell that Snubull is huge!), on the whole, I really like these designs and it makes me interested to see what they do with the Pokemon that didn't make it into the movie.
On the human side, the casting is solid. It feels like everyone there was at least having fun with their roles, and their interactions with the CGI/ puppets do work well enough for it to be believable. The only faults I really have with the human cast are the more related to the script itself, I think Tim is so adamant about not having a partner Pokemon in one scene only to pair up with Pikachu the next scene feels a bit too forced, the pacing for it could have been better. Is it a great movie though? No, but I'd say that this is a nice proof of concept. It does work in the hands of western storytellers, and there is room here to grow. I'm looking forward to the sequel, and hope that they do more with the IP other than follow-ups to Detective Pikachu. Based on that climax, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon movie, please?
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