Review: Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Pokémon Detective Pikachu , directed by Rob Letterman, tells the tale of an insurance agent named Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) who travels to Ryme City, where Pokémon and humans live in peaceful harmony, after he learns of his father’s death in a car accident. But once he arrives to the city, he runs across his dad’s pokémon, a Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Renolds) that Tim can completely understand, who tells him that Tim’s dad is still alive. Together the two partner up and solve the mystery involving a powerful and legendary Pokémon and Tim’s dad’s disappearance.
This is the latest film to be released that’s based on a video game, and as we all should know by now they’re almost guaranteed to be bad. Video games and movies just don’t mix well; they’re both enjoyable for very different reasons, once you bring one element over to the other you’re bound to be missing an element that made the element good to begin with.
However, in this film’s case things seem to be different. According to critics this film is for once a tolerable video game movie. People seem to enjoy this film, but I wish I was able to feel the same way. Detective Pikachu is definitely better than your average video game movie, I might even say it’s the best of the bunch so far, but after giving this film a watch two times I just couldn’t get myself to enjoy it. This is pretty much nothing more than a generic cash grab with no real plot or purpose other than to bank on the Pokémon brand.
I mean there are things that I enjoyed in this film. For starters I did enjoy the film’s production design. A lot of the lighting is very reminiscent of the mystery film noire genre this film is clearly trying to draw influence on. The Pokémon themselves look very much like their digital counterparts. Outside of a select few Pokémon whose live-action designs are nothing short of nightmare inducing (don’t look in the Audino’s eyes), all the Pokémon are incredibly distinct and recognizable. The music is also nice at times; there’s a very techno vibe to it that fits this world perfectly. And that’s about it; the rest of the film was pretty bad.
The plot was poorly thought out; you can pretty much see and predict everything that’s going to happen despite this being a mystery film. I mean even kids should be able to figure out who the bad guy is the moment they see him. The acting was incredibly cringe-worthy; Ryan Renolds was playing Ryan Renolds, Justice Smith is very much holding back in his performance, and everyone else was either really bland or just awful to listen to.
The jokes don’t land often enough, the ending “twist” is beyond stupid, and the “action” is pretty boring to watch. One of the defining aspects I enjoyed about Pokémon was the Pokémon battles; I liked seeing all those Pokémon fight using powers in very unique ways. Here in this movie, these’s only one real Pokémon battle, and it doesn’t happen until the film’s climax. The rest of the film is essentially a bunch of characters running away from Pokémon. I don’t find that very fun to watch at all.
Overall this was just another video game movie for me. There is some enjoyment to be had here and critics and audiences are actually enjoying this film so maybe you’ll enjoy it too. As for me it takes more than a bunch of cute looking Pokémon to make a good movie. This is a step up for video game movies, but it’s not enough.
Final Verdict: 3/10