Heads up: This is not a spoiler-free post
This is one of those films that is absolutely improved by the overall audience experience. Detective Pikachu is already a pretty fun movie to begin with, but it was wonderful to attend a showing where the audience was filled with young children. If ever you are unsure about which Pokémon are in the film and what their names are, sit near a child. There were multiple children around us calling out the names of Pokémon as they appeared onscreen. It even helped for some scenes as the children noticed Pokémon that I didn’t!
And what’s really fantastic about this film is the fact that there were Pokémon EVERYWHERE! Of course, with so many Pokémon in existence, it would be practically impossible to feature every single one of them in a film. But this movie still managed to fit quite a lot of them in there. Although only a handful could be prominently featured, there were still many, many more Pokémon that had cameo appearances. And, most importantly, they looked good! Going into a film like this I knew I was going to see a lot of CG which, as you may know, is not something I am always a fan of. Luckily, all of the Pokémon looked not only great, but they looked like they truly belonged in that cinematic environment.
The music was definitely fun and fitting with the tone of the film but it needed to be taken a step further. For a number of scenes, the score had a very video game kind of feel, but not all scenes had music like this. Some had more of a “traditional” orchestral film score and I really would have loved it if the video game style music had been a bit more prominent. But I enjoyed the music overall and adored the moments where the melody of the Pokémon theme was woven in to part of the soundtrack. Having Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) sing the theme song was a bonus.
Unfortunately, the villain of this film was overly obvious and simplistic. It was apparent from the moment Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy) mentioned that he had become wheelchair bound and was looking for a way to improve his condition that he would become the main antagonist. Regrettably, this film fell back onto the overused, and no longer appropriate, trope of disability leading to villainy. Having his son Roger (Chris Geere) pose as the potential mastermind behind the events was a predictable red herring, but it certainly would have been a better choice to have him as the main villain instead of his father. Either way, their relationship served as an effective parallel between the other father/son relationship in the film. Whereas Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) and his father are able to learn from their experiences and could start to work towards improving their relationship, the Cliffords contrast this in the form of a failed relationship. Both fathers have an obsession with their work, but only Tim’s father is able to see that he needs to spend more time with his family and less time with his work.
So yes the plot was simple, but the visuals were well done and the Pokémon were spectacular (although I am a little creeped out by Ditto now). But this is a family film so I really wasn’t expecting anything complex or high-brow artistic. It’s a family oriented story line that is filled to the brim with all sorts of Pokémon, so I got exactly what I wanted out of it. I went to see this movie because I wanted to have fun. And I did! I would absolutely love to watch this film again.
