Filmic Friday 220: Detective Pikachu

I've brought it up a time or three this week, but I turned 30 four days ago. Why is this important? Because the big-box theater closest to me lets you go to a movie for free on your birthday. I've seen some real stinkers there for Birthday Movies, like Jonah Hex, and I've seen good ones like Guardians of the Galaxy, and I believe that I even went to one of the Star Wars prequels when I was much younger. Lately, however, they've been having what they call "No Pass Engagements" - which means you can't go to specific movies with discounts, birthday comps, etc. You can't even use coupons at the refreshment stand.

Here's how messed up the "No Pass Engagement" rules are, though:

One of the crappy religious movies? No-Pass Engagement.

Detective Pikachu - one of the most anticipated live-action video game movies of the last decade? Nah, you can go in for free.

And I did!

I dragged Z with me, and I feel compelled to tell you that Z is 100% not a Pokemon fan. This movie didn't cause a conversion, but we both enjoyed it, and that's amazing.

And yeah, the city looks this wild and Blade Runner-esque!

So, first I'll talk about how insane and gorgeous the CG in this movie is, because it's incredible. I don't think I noticed any animation errors while watching it, which I've seen in most movies that rely so heavily on CG over practical effects. I actually want to live in Rhyme City - it's gorgeous, it's eclectic, it looks like you could never leave your city block and always have something new to do or somewhere new to go. It feels like a living Japanese city mixed with the back-alley grime of Chicago. Fantastic.

And the Pokemon Modeling!!!

First off, loooooook how cute he is!!!

And he's so expressive!

All of the Pokemon in this movie are fully realized characters. They have their own personalities, their own facial expressions, their own movement styles. Yes, when you have three Emolga on screen at once, they're going to look very similar, but it felt like each one was subtly different from the others. When Pokemon are in the wild, they have a more wide-eyed innocence to them, almost a naivety, but in the city, they tend to look more tired - they have jobs to do and work hard at them. From the childlike Aipom hanging around on the fire escapes to the overworked line cook Ludicolo to the hard-working Snubbull in the police station, these Pokemon seem to have lives and work to do.

And don't get me started on the Mr Mime from the trailers. That scene is painfully hilarious.

Now, the Pokemon are great, and I honestly could do with a series of Nature-style mockumentaries about wild Pokemon & their habits, but what about the live actors?

Justice Smith as Tim with Detective Pikachu on his shoulder

Tim, the main character, is played by Justice Smith, and while he was not a bad actor, he did seem a little stiff and wooden. His awkwardness seemed a little forced, but I'll forgive the guy - it's not every day when your job consists of talking to and reacting to a tennis ball voiced by Ryan Reynolds. He does his best to interact realistically with the CG Pokemon around him, and for the most part it works. I wasn't dragged out of the illusion as Z was. Maybe I have lower standards? Regardless, it's fun to watch him flail around trying to deal with loss and change and heartbreak. Also, he is 100% believable as a guy who gave up on his dreams to sell insurance.

Kathryn Newton as "Lucy Stevens" with her Psyduck

I kind of love the character of Lucy. Is she a particularly well-rounded character? Nope. But she's this movie's April O'Neil. She's the girl reporter. She's the henpecked intern with greater ambitions. She carries around a feathery time bomb (Psyduck are psychic, and when they go off, they're massively destructive, and that's a plot point). It was cute watching her flail around and I really appreciated that she wasn't just a flaily millennial - when it came time to do work, she was on her A-Game. Her character felt the most 1990s, I think. You could absolutely see her as the love interest in a 90s teen-focused show or movie.

Ken Watanabe as Lt Hide Yoshida with his... Snubbull?!

 Out of everyone in this movie, Ken is the best at working with CG creatures. He has a focus & intensity that keeps the scenes moving and his eyes never slide away from their target looking for features that aren't there yet. His character feels like most of the supporting scenes were cut, but it just left me really wanting a Yoshida & Snubbull buddy cop show. Also, it's hilarious to me that in a police station filled with Arcanine & Machamp, he's got a little fairy puppy. Seriously, Snubbull is a Fairy type.

Chris Geere as Roger Clifford

 Does he look like the bad guy? He's presented as the bad guy. He acts like some entitled rich boy twit (and he is, to an extent), but we're also supposed to believe that he may have something to do with trying to wipe out Pokemon because his daddy loves them more than him. If that sounds suspicious, it is. It's possibly the weakest plot twist in the movie. Even if you can see the main plot twist coming from a mile away, at least that has a point. This one... not so much. This section of the story was obviously written for a younger audience. Still, Geere is fantastic. I've never wanted to punch a supporting character this hard, lol.

Bill Nighy as Howard Clifford

So... if you've grown up with Pokemon, you will recognize old Bill here as somewhat of a trope - the Powerful Businessman Who Does So Much Good He Couldn't Possibly Be Evil. Yeah. You know he's going to be the bad guy pretty much from the moment you see him, but then... something magical happens.

Bill Nighy makes you forget that you already know he's the bad guy. He's such a good actor that you actively forget that he's obviously the bad guy!

Now, there's a lot of story to watch through, so I won't give away too much, but the plot is thus:

Tim Goodman gets a call that his estranged father has been killed while on an investigation. He goes to Rhyme City to get his father's affairs in order, fully intending to go back home, but then his father's Pokemon partner, Pikachu, shows up out of the blue and suddenly, he can understand this one Pokemon. With this remarkable bond, the two set out to discover what happened to Tim's father, Harry, and what, if anything, it has to do with a mysterious, aggression-causing gas called "R".

That's it. That's the plot.

Now, it's honestly the most 90s movie I've seen since 1999, because pretty much every part of this movie is drawn from something in the 1990s. I'm not kidding. You may have seen the "Does Home Alone Exist in the Detective Pikachu Universe?" memes and stuff. They're not being silly. The movie from inside Home Alone, Angels with Filthy Wings, is playing on a tv at one point. What. The. Heck.

I'm not complaining, though, because it's perfect.

Even the finale is straight out of a 1990s movie. Well, 1989...

Spoilers:
The movie's finale is almost exactly the same as the finale in Batman: 1989.

Not kidding.

Spoilers end here.

Okay, so would I recommend this movie to someone who doesn't know much about Pokemon? Yeah, actually. It does a good job of explaining itself, even if it kind of glosses over the concept of Evolution. It's pretty clear and straightforward, and the story is really more about how weird a world with two sentient species would actually be.

Hold on.

A thought occurs.

WHAT IS THE MEAT THEY'RE EATING IN THE STREET FOOD STALLS?! ARE THERE "NORMAL" FOOD ANIMALS? ARE THEY EATING POKEMON?! WTF WTF WTF!!!!

So yeah.

This movie will leave even seasoned Pokemon lovers with questions, but in the end, it's exactly what I wanted from a Pokemon movie.

10/10 would watch again, hokey final act and all.

Just... I could've done without the weird, obtrusive Lil Uzi Vert stuff during the credits. There was no need for any of that modern, non-score music in the credits...

Go Enjoy Something!
FC