Justice Smith stars as Tim Goodman, a young man who lives on the outskirts of Ryme City, a place that has become a model for human/Pokémon cohabitation. For years, humans partnered with Pokémon and trained them for battle in arenas, but a man named Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy)—the Steve Jobs of the Pokémon world—wanted a place where there was more comfortable freedom for the two species to co-exist. So people like Police Lieutenant Hide Yoshida (an unbelievably wasted Ken Watanabe) and young reporter Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton) have Pokémon partners but there isn’t an emphasis on training, fighting, etc. Clifford is nearing the end of his life and will hand his empire over to his son Roger (Chris Geere), who looks like he may not be as peace-seeking as dear old dad.
![]()
Like Prince of Persia, Silent Hill, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Detective Pikachu is a good movie first, and a video game movie second. And that’s what all video game movies should. Detective Pikachu is an above average point-and-click style game wrapped with a great lead character in Detective Pikachu. The heart and the humour of the story more than make up for any clunkiness in the game’s mechanics and a slow start. Fun for everyone, let’s bring on the movie.
After Tim’s police detective father dies in a car accident, Goodman heads to Ryme City to find out exactly what happened. That’s where he crosses paths with Tim’s partner Pikachu. Most Pokémon sound like they’re saying their name in a cutesy voice to humans. So the little yellow dude sounds like he’s saying variations on “Pikachu” to everyone in Ryme City—everyone except Tim. When Pikachu talks to him, Tim hears Ryan Reynolds, who does solid, entertaining voice work, especially in the first half of the movie before the plot and CGI even mess that up. Tim and Pikachu have to solve the mystery of what happened to Tim’s dad, which leads them into an investigation involving what is basically a Pokemon PED called ‘R’ and the involvement of a legendary Pokémon named Mewtoo.
The design of Ryme City is one of the strongest elements of “Pokémon Detective Pikachu.” With its massive skyscrapers with colorful billboards perched on all of them, it has echoes of “Blade Runner” if the replicants were all replaced by cuddly creatures. Some of the most fun to be had with “Detective Pikachu” is just admiring the eye-popping visuals when Tim first gets to Ryme City and seeing how the creators of the film have incorporated Pokémon mythology into a massive urban setting. Sadly, a lot of the visual pop of “Detective Pikachu” fades in the middle as it becomes more and more reliant on CGI sequences and expository-heavy flashbacks delivered through a hologram technology that may be the laziest screenwriting technique of the year—magic holograms that can show us and the characters everything that happened!
![]()
After Tim’s police detective father dies in a car accident, Goodman heads to Ryme City to find out exactly what happened. That’s where he crosses paths with Tim’s partner Pikachu. Most Pokémon sound like they’re saying their name in a cutesy voice to humans. So the little yellow dude sounds like he’s saying variations on “Pikachu” to everyone in Ryme City—everyone except Tim. When Pikachu talks to him, Tim hears Ryan Reynolds, who does solid, entertaining voice work, especially in the first half of the movie before the plot and CGI even mess that up. Tim and Pikachu have to solve the mystery of what happened to Tim’s dad, which leads them into an investigation involving what is basically a Pokemon PED called ‘R’ and the involvement of a legendary Pokémon named Mewtoo.
The design of Ryme City is one of the strongest elements of “Pokémon Detective Pikachu.” With its massive skyscrapers with colorful billboards perched on all of them, it has echoes of “Blade Runner” if the replicants were all replaced by cuddly creatures. Some of the most fun to be had with “Detective Pikachu” is just admiring the eye-popping visuals when Tim first gets to Ryme City and seeing how the creators of the film have incorporated Pokémon mythology into a massive urban setting. Sadly, a lot of the visual pop of “Detective Pikachu” fades in the middle as it becomes more and more reliant on CGI sequences and expository-heavy flashbacks delivered through a hologram technology that may be the laziest screenwriting technique of the year—magic holograms that can show us and the characters everything that happened!
![]() Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
February 2023
Categories |