Movie Review of Pokémon: Detective Pikachu by Jason Escamilla. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy. Directed by Rob Letterman. #PokemonDetectivePikachu #DetectivePikachu #DetectivePikachuReview

Review Transcript

I loved pokemon growing up. I played the video games and the card game. Unfortunately, this movie was boring.

Tim Goodman, portrayed by Justice Smith, is told that his father is involved in a fatal accident and is missing. While at his father’s apartment, Tim teams up with the adorable Detective Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds. Together, they venture throughout Ryme City, which is place where Pokemon and Humans live peacefully with one another, in order to uncover the mystery behind Tim’s dad’s disappearance- learning about some shocking truths along the way.

Kids who love Pokemon are probably really going to like this movie. There’s enough iconic Pokemon in the movie to get their attention and the plot is easy to follow.

However, as an adult I was not entertained. It really feels like an average Saturday morning cartoon where you don’t usually get an emotional punch or real suspense.

There’s a few times where this movie goes for an emotional hit and the reason why it doesn’t work is because it is relying on the fact that you really care about Tim and his father Harry’s relationship, which I didn’t. The two were not very close and there’s never a moment where you see the two interacting, with the exception of flashbacks (and there’s a reason why that I won’t spoil) but I really think that it ruined us developing a desire for these two characters to find each other. Because it didn’t feel like they were close, I found the main mystery to be underwhelming and a bit boring. The film should have started out with us seeing them bond and give us a reason to care that his dad is missing. If they fixed this, his dad would have felt like a real person we wanted to see come back and the bond between them would have felt more real.

The antagonist’s motive was so silly it is forgettable and the twist with this character feels like a cliche Saturday morning cartoon. There’s a twist with Tim’s dad is that I was not expecting but I don’t think it saved the film from the main plot being unengaging.

Also, the script suffers from lackluster comedy that did not make me laugh too much. While I think Ryan Reynolds is hilarious, there wasn’t any memorable big laugh-out-loud moments.

The best compliment I can give to Detective Pikachu is the visuals. They are admittingly beautiful. Pikachu is very cute, as you would expect. The neon lit city is aesthetically pleasing to look at.

Audience’s inner child may enjoy an adventure that’s equivalently as exciting as a Saturday morning cartoon. Those looking for substance will be bored by an underwhelming plot.