Review - Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019)

          Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, we're a week out from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and I'm here taking a look at other movies based on nostalgic franchises I grew up with. Today, I'll be jumping back into the world of Pokémon with the 2019 movie Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Directed by Rob Letterman, this film marked the first foray of the Pokémon franchise into live-action films, and it stars Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Ken Watanabe, and Bill Nighy. 

       The movie opens at a Pokémon laboratory, which gets sabotaged, and a Mewtwo breaks out, attacks the researchers, and escapes, going after a car that flees the lab and is knocked over a bridge. But, we'll get to that later. We then cut to a small, rural town, where Tim Goodman and his friend Jack stake out a Cubone, which Tim unsuccessfully attempts to catch. Tim later gets a call from the Ryme City Police Department, who inform him that his father, Harry, was involved in an accident and is presumably dead. Tim then takes the train to Ryme City, which we learn is a city where humans and Pokémon live side-by-side in harmony. Also, Tom gets licked in the face by a Lickitung. 

        Upon arriving in Ryme City, Tim meets with Lt. Yoshida, whose Pokémon partner is a Snubbull. Yoshida gives Tim the keys to Harry's apartment. Tim heads to the apartment building, checks Harry's mailbox, and is confronted by aspiring reporter Lucy Stevens and her Pokémon partner Psyduck. Lucy tries to get some information regarding the case, but Tim has none, so she and Psyduck leave. In Harry's apartment, Tim looks around, and finds a vial marked "R," and accidentally opens it, releasing a purple gas that has adverse affects on a nearby group of Aipom. Tim then runs into a Pikachu wearing a detective hat, and is shocked to realize that he can understand what the Pikachu is saying. Tim and Pikachu are attacked by the now crazed Aipom, but eventually they return to normal as the effects of the R gas wears off. Tim then learns that Pikachu is Harry's Pokémon partner, and the two decide to team up to solve the mystery surrounding Harry's disappearance. 

           Tim and Pikachu then meet with Harry's informant, a Mr. Mime, who leads them to an illegal Pokémon fighting club, and the club's owner recognizes Pikachu, and challenges him to a rematch against the owner's prized Charizard, which gets crazed because of exposure to the R gas. Pikachu, with help from Tim goes after the Charizard, and Tim learns that the R gas comes from the lab outside of the city. However, more R gas spreads around, and affects more Pokémon, including a bunch of Loudred that work with the club's DJ. Pikachu helps a nearby Magikarp evolve into Gyarados, who sends everyone and everything out of the club in a mass of water. 

      Tim and Pikachu are picked up by Yoshida, who shows them footage of the crash, and tells Tim to stop looking into what happened to Harry. Tim and Pikachu are then picked up by Ms. Norman, who takes them to Howard Clifford, the founder of Ryme City, who shows more details surrounding the crash, in that it was caused by Mewtwo. Howard believes that his son, Roger, was experimenting with Mewtwo, which led Howard to hiring Harry to investigate. 

       So, Tim and Pikachu, along with Lucy and Psyduck, head to the abandoned lab, and they discover bizarre experiments that were done to Pokémon such as Torterra and Greninja. It's here that Tim and Pikachu learn that Harry was tasked by Dr. Ann Laurent, one of the lab's researchers, with finding Mewtwo and bringing it to the lab. It's also revealed that Mewtwo is the source of the R gas. Tim and Pikachu save Lucy and Psyduck from the escaped Greninja, and the four escape, only to learn that the forest is made up of gigantic Torterra. After an accident, Pikachu is severely hurt, and a group of Bulbasaur take both Tim and Pikachu to someone who can help: Mewtwo. Mewtwo shows Tim a vision of the crash, where it confronted Pikachu in regards to helping it escape from the lab. However, Roger and his forces capture Mewtwo. Pikachu, feeling he betrayed Harry, leaves Tim, who returns to Ryme City. Pikachu then finds the bridge that the crash took place at, finding a Greninja star, which proves that Mewtwo didn't attack Harry and cause the crash, but attacked the Greninja that caused the crash. 

        Tim then heads to Howard's office, where he learns that Howard wanted to use the R gas to merge with Mewtwo, and uses parade balloons filled with R gas to spread it around the city, and merge everyone in the city with all of the city's Pokémon. Tim frees the real Roger, learning that a fake Roger is also Ms. Norman, and the two are a Ditto. Tim fights off the Ditto, while Pikachu fights off Howard/Mewtwo. Tim takes the mind-link device off of Howard's head, freeing Mewtwo, who restores everyone in Ryme City back to normal. Mewtwo then reveals the truth: it saved Harry's mind by placing it into his Pikachu partner, and could only restore Harry to human form with Tim's help. Mewtwo then separates Pikachu from Harry, and all is well. 

          Back at the train station, Harry brings Tim a train ticket to head back home, but Tim decides to stay in Ryme City, giving detective work a try along with his father and Pikachu. 

      Okay, so when I heard that there was going to be a live-action Pokémon movie, I got really excited, until I learned that it was based on the weird spinoff game Detective Pikachu. However, when I saw the trailers for the movie, I got really excited to see it, and when it finally hit theaters, I absolutely enjoyed it. The visual effects used to bring the Pokémon to life was simply stunning, and all of the details to making the Pokémon look realistic was absolutely gorgeous. I think my favorite designs included the likes of Psyduck, Charizard, Snubbull, Mr. Mime, and of course Pikachu. 

      As far as the cast, I definitely enjoyed Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton as Tim and Lucy. I also really liked how Lucy really showed concern for her Psyduck, which was really sweet. Ken Watanabe was terrific as Yoshida, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Bill Nighy as Howard, Chris Geere as Roger, Rita Ora as Dr. Laurent, and Suki Waterhouse as Ms. Norman/Ditto. Now, as far as Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu goes, I really enjoyed it. His voice is definitely distinct enough to be fun, but I definitely understand those that can't split it apart from his performance as Deadpool. Now, I'm going to be honest, when Ryan Reynolds himself actually showed up as Harry at the end of the movie, I didn't see it coming. I admit it, I was taken aback by Ryan Reynolds actually appearing in the movie physically, but I digress. 

       Now, the whole thing with dangerous gas in parade balloons was ripped off from the 1989 Batman, however, the endgame of using it to merge humans and Pokémon is what, I think, sets it apart from Batman, where Joker just wanted to kill everyone with the deadly gas. 

      The real fun with this movie is in watching and pointing out how many Pokémon you can recognize. I encourage you guys to watch this movie and see how many Pokémon you can name throughout the movie. It's definitely enjoyable to do so. I'm giving Pokémon: Detective Pikachu a rating of 5/5. Kudos to Rob Letterman and everyone at Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures for bringing the world of Pokémon to life on the big screen. Heck this movie was the first Pokémon movie released theatrically by Warner Bros. since Pokémon 3: Spell of the Unown back in 2001. 

         This is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you guys next time.