{"id":7336,"date":"2019-05-09T16:57:06","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7336"},"modified":"2019-05-09T16:57:10","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:57:10","slug":"review-pokemon-detective-pikachu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7336","title":{"rendered":"Review: POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An incomprehensible story and a combination of blurry, often dizzying special effects make this video game adaptation for die-hard fans only.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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A total of 11 writers are credited with the \u201cPok\u00e9mon Detective Pikachu\u201d character creation and story. This talented creative team place an inert narrative within an interesting and potentially rich world. But maybe too many hands touched the script. In attempting to cover all the Pok\u00e9mon bases, something important got lost: coherence.

Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) is a thoughtful loner, who resists the societal norm, which has humans partnering with various Pok\u00e9mon creatures. He has no intention of capturing a Pok\u00e9mon. In his past, Tim wanted to be a Pok\u00e9mon trainer, but he soured to the idea when his police officer father, Harry, left him and his late mother for a job in the big city.

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A boy and his, er, Pikachu?<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But when Tim learns that Harry has been killed while investigating a case, Tim ventures into the city to take care of the final arrangements. The circumstances surrounding Harry\u2019s death are mysterious. No body was found, because security footage indicates that a powerful Pok\u00e9mon may have incinerated him.

Naturally, Tim is drawn into investigating Harry\u2019s mysterious demise. Along the way, he partners with his Harry\u2019s Pok\u00e9mon, dubbed Detective Pikachu (voiced cleanly by wise-cracker extraordinaire Ryan Reynolds). Some kind of drug has flooded the streets of the city, and it causes the ordinarily mild-mannered Pok\u00e9mon to become powerful dangerous. Before people get hurt or worse, the case has to be solved.

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Detective Pikachu has a thing for coffee.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To put it bluntly, \u201cDetective Pikachu\u201d is boring. And given the massive amount of resources and talent involved, that\u2019s really surprising, and I can\u2019t imagine even little ones engaging entirely with the dense, often confusing storyline. The best moments come early, as the world is built, especially the city that is awash in every type of unusual and colorful Pok\u00e9mon. But exhaustion sets in early, as the tone is constantly jumping around, and the effects both over and underwhelm.

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The best effects in the film are early, with scenes in the colorful city.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are moments in this movie that are impossible to watch. In some action sequences, characters crash and fall and twist in impossible and frustrating ways. On top of that shifting kaleidoscope, the dramatic flourishes seem entirely out of place. There\u2019s one scene in which Tim is moved to tears while discussing his father with Detective Pikachu. It seems as if Justice Smith\u2019s well-meaning performance belongs in a completely different movie. It\u2019s odd, reminding me of Michael Moriarty\u2019s serious turn in the bonkers 1980s movie \u201cQ: The Winged Serpent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bill Nighy plays a billionaire, who designed a city
where humans and Pok\u00e9mon live in harmony.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And while the Pok\u00e9mon characters have weight and look uncanny, the images constantly change from heavily animated to something appearing to be much less so. For example, the woozy effects sequences conclude by giving way to more grounded images at breakneck speed, but in the transition, you can almost see the seams weaving together the two worlds. Lighting moves from dark to bright in an obvious attempt to mask effects work. It gave me a small, but distracting headache.

One excuse that will likely be made for this weakly realized video game (also a trading card game) adaptation is that fans will love the laundry list of Pok\u00e9mon creatures on display, which is clearly aimed at children. The attempt may be to wear the \u201cPG\u201d rating as a badge of honor, amid the arguable cesspool of content polluted with language, violence, and sexual situations. But don\u2019t buy it. And aimed at children? The Pok\u00e9mon empire, which started as a video game in 1995, has plenty of adult devotees. A little more sophistication might have gone a long way here, especially as the wham-bang conclusion felt very much like something from a \u201cSpy Kids\u201d entry.

\u201cPok\u00e9mon Detective Pikachu\u201d isn\u2019t the \u201cPG\u201d action movie that it could have been, and as an introduction to a new Pok\u00e9mon franchise, it\u2019s not a good start.

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Fans may flock to it, but everyone else will be confused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[735,1474,1475,1473,55,122],"class_list":["post-7336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-bill-nighy","tag-detective-pikachu","tag-justice-smith","tag-pokemon","tag-ryan-reynolds","tag-video-games","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7343,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7336\/revisions\/7343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}