Coming into Detective Pikachu, I suppose being an avid Pokemon fan all my life did not benefit me in the slightest as maybe I had raised my expectations way too high ever since the announcement of the movie. I had not been this excited for a movie in my whole life, barring EndGame maybe, which definitely did not lend Detective Pikachu any favours with a cinematic masterpiece like EndGame being the last movie I had seen before seeing this Pikachu movie, which left Detective Pikachu with an impossible follow-up act to go upon.
The start of the movie with Tim and his random friend catching the Cubone was “cute” I guess, but it definitely had that “cringe anime live-action” vibe to every piece of dialogue that was mentioned and it started to make me fear for the rest of the movie, but I was wrong and despite the next few scenes being very rushed with little detail put into them, it all was forgiven once we got to the main event…seeing Pikachu in that apartment, it lived up to the hype. Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu was everything I had hoped for and his one-liners and all-round persona as Pikachu was something completely new for Pokemon but it worked so so well and made me fall in love with that portrayal of Pikachu.
Following up that point, the plot continues and Tim and Pikachu go to an underground fight arena, where there is a Blastoise fighting a Gengar, which was perfectly portrayed and to be honest, I was expecting to see more Pokemon V Pokemon action like that throughout the film, however, I can only really recall two or three occasions where we got to see actual Pokemon action throughout the movie, which I guess I can forgive as the film is about a certain narrative and not just Pokemon fighting as a whole.
Prior to the fight club, there is a part which we saw in trailers including Mr. Mime and it had me in tears laughing, Mr.Mime was hilarious and the scene was perfect, absolutely perfect, I would almost want to rewatch the movie purely for that scene with Mr. Mime. Another Pokemon that I did not come into this movie with any significant affinity to was Psyduck, but after seeing that movie it made me want to own a Psyduck of my own, which I never expected to be saying, but Psyduck and Pikachu were the life of the movie for many points for me personally.
The CGI was sensational, all the Pokemon looked fantastic, which was a slight concern of mine when the movie was first announced given that video game movies that go live-action have a history of not getting the design right…not hinting at any movie, in particular, *cough cough*. But, the Pokemon looked amazing, and that was perfectly shown when they did a close up on a Bulbasaur’s face and I can honestly not think of any words to do it justice other than the fact I was left in complete and utter awe at how fantastic the Bulbasaur looked in live-action.
However, despite all the praises I have given this movie so far, it is far from perfect. Within the movie, there is a tonne of cringe lines and acting from the human actors whilst the movie did lack a wide variety of Pokemon, which I can forgive for how good of a job they did with the Pokemon that was within the film. A story that wouldn’t blow you away but wouldn’t leave you disappointed also had a lot of plot holes to accompany a poor ending where the Pikachu that we had spent the whole film getting to know and love, ends up returning to its regular Pokemon state, which does not reward the viewer whatsoever when you spend a whole movie getting attached to the first personification of a Pikachu only for it to be returned to its blank state in the end. Also, I love Ryan Reynolds but him being Tim’s dad made zero sense and seemed extremely forced.
Detective Pikachu is the best Pokemon and video game movie ever made and left me leaving with more happiness than disappointment, it is a fantastic movie with a catalogue of brilliant moments that I won’t ever forget as a Pokemon fan.
Overall Rating – 7.5/10
Nathan Brennan 