When Pokemon, the franchise known for capturing little fighting monsters inside red and white balls, first started to make an impact in the late 90’s, I remember both the games and anime being big deals at my school regardless one’s age/grade level. The television series and subsequent films are known for having earnest and often unironic tones, something that make films like Pokemon The Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, the Celebi-centric Pokemon 4Ever and Lucario & The Mystery of Mew stand out.
For those of you most familiar with the cartoon or games walking into the new Rob Letterman-directed film Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (based on the spin-off game of the same name), keep in mind you’re going to get a far different approach to the material. Remember that Pikachu isn’t one singular character in the Poke-canon, but a species of creature. The yellow mouse that accompanies Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) throughout this story is a totally separate personality- not the same child-like innocent that Ash Ketchum trains, but rather a slick-talking sleuth who’s prone to making rude bathroom jokes and slurping down coffee.
Thankfully, Ryan Reynolds’ performance as this Pikachu goes far in making these elements appealing. This electric hairball has charisma to burn, developing his electric abilities and confidence throughout the film. Smith isn’t too bad himself in his role as Tim, a young insurance salesman and disenfranchised ex-Pokemon trainer who’s taken a train to Ryme City in order to learn what happened to his father Harry after learning of his recent car accident and disappearance.
Tim meets up with Detective Pikachu, the spunky reporter Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton) and her Psyduck in a hotel, who believe there’s more to Harry’s crash than initially appears. Suffering from amnesia, the Pikachu looks to Tim in order to help recover his memories and find the missing clues they need. Together they fall down a rabbit hole of a conspiracy in order to genetically experiment with Pokemon, with the staggeringly powerful Mewtwo (Rina Hoshino) as a key element.
In terms of being an entertaining buddy-mystery, Detective Pikachu certainly delivers, although the storyline can get a bit muddled at points and the pacing midway through becomes a little frantic. Without spoiling too much of the plot, some elements reminded me quite a bit of Disney’s Zootopia- particularly in its use of a grizzled and skeptical police chief (Ken Watanabe), Tim’s arrival in the stunning metropolis by train, the city’s mastermind Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy in a bit of a hammy performance) and a chemical substance that spells trouble for its citizens.
Most of these sequences are extremely clever and well-rendered by the effects team. Reynolds’ Pikachu is always bright and fluffy, and his messed-up fur looks believable as he fights with mad Charizards and Gyradoses after he and Tim play good cop/bad with a Mr. Mime (resulting in some surprisingly adult jokes that slip past the radar). The Pokemon themselves are nicely drawn into the backgrounds, making their relationship with the humans easy to buy into.
Ultimately, Detective Pikachu is certainly the most Western-feeling Pokemon property to date in its attitude, but it still retains most of the series’ heart and focus on friendship. It’s got some elements that skew more towards adult audiences than most of the preceding animated movies, and also an unfortunate lack of Team Rocket (my favorite characters from the anime).
But these are minor complaints about what I felt was an entertaining film noir-satire that just happens to star Nintendo heroes. It’ll definitely appeal primarily to kids and the Pokemon fandom, but to outsiders or those claiming this sort of movie isn’t “for them”- I’d still recommend you give it a chance even if you’re not a die-hard follower of the series, if only because Reynolds gets so much out of this role, believe it or not. If you’ve grabbed a ticket and seen it, hop on @Official_FAN on Twitter and share your opinion as always!