Detective Pikachu - review

Release Date: May 10, 2019​​​​​​​​

Kids Noir Movie

​There has always been difficulty bringing stories that exist in other mediums to movies. The most obvious example is a book adaptation. There are too many details that can’t be put in, sometimes the meaning of the story is changed, and it becomes less special without all the things that make it great. Films based on video games have faced this problem before and in every case, they have failed. So for Detective Pikachu, the odds have been stacked against it since its inception. The brand is already so entrenched in its own identity, how could the property successfully make the jump to live action? 

Detective Pikachu creates a brand new place for people unfamiliar with Pokémon. It has the easter eggs and references that fans of the property will pour over, but the space for everyone. It's here where the movie is at its strongest. The visuals of the city, the early set locations, and the production design are top-notch here. For the first 20 minutes, it looks like a more colorful noir movie, complete with rays of light through blinds and claustrophobic spaces. I was sold on the Pokémon

walking around and believed in the world that was being shown off. The VFX were great considering I felt like this was a real place filled with tons of animals. It also had major Zootopia vibes—that scene where Judy first arrives is almost recreated here. This film has all the production to be taken seriously; it's shot on film and people cared while making it; all of which lends itself for the audience to enjoy it. 

The problems come down to almost everything else. The plot was paper-thin. It was structured like how a child would tell a story, with them constantly going, "and then, and then, and then". Which really bleeds into how the characters came across because they came off as pretty basic. The dialogue is to blame since in some scenes, you could tell actors were trying to do a good job with the material that they were given. It must have been the script considering the dialogue just sucked. It wasn't even that funny of a movie with all the best parts being in the trailer. Any attempt at a joke that wasn't already shown didn't even make me giggle.  

For all the praise I gave the CGI for bringing Pokémon to life, there is a sequence hinted at in the trailer that was awful. The whole thing looked fake and I don't understand how you make a forest seem unbelievable. The music, while not super great, does incorporate sounds from the games as a motif which can't be picked up when watching the movie. Finally, Ryan Reynolds isn't just doing Deadpool without cursing, he adds a lighter touch and smooths out the edges in his delivery.

It comes off more like a kids movie than anything, which isn't bad, but foregoes any depth to keeps adults invested. As pure eye candy and entertainment, it works. If you follow the brand or have children, this could be a good enough experience to see this in the theater. If you have never even heard of Pokémon other than when people were standing in the streets with their phones, this is not for you. As someone who has had some contact with the property and is a sucker for good CGI, I was entertained enough.

5/10
​I guess you can say that the movie wasn't electrifying