Forum - View topicREVIEW: Detective Pikachu
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Sekaro
Posts: 348 |
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I've seen the movie so I would to point out a few things that bothered me without spoiling much of anything of course.
1. For a movie that seems to be praised for making a live-action pokemon film work, I didn't really see a whole lot of different pokemon. They reused the same type of pokemons and just multiplied them to fill up the background. In one scene, I saw nothing but a group of sneazels and charmanders littering the screen. This might seem like a small issue but it bothered me quite a bit. 2. The side-characters are really not that engrossing to watch. I agree with pretty much all of the points the reviewer made regarding the side-characters. By the end of the movie, I just couldn't care less about their arcs. |
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King Pickle the Wise
 Posts: 37 |
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There's been a lot of great anime movies, but I guess you're talking about Hollywood live action films? I'd say no. It suffers from the usual problems they face. Not having much to do with the games its based on, controversal racial casting choices, and bad CGI. |
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danpmss
 Posts: 764 |
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There's quite a reasonable amount of Pokemon appearing all around, for a 100 minutes movie. https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/12/18087432/detective-pikachu-trailer-live-action-every-pokemon-list-cameos And these aren't even all of them, even if they also count a few posters. You will find less variety in 100 minutes of the anime (and obviously, the games, which consume 50+ hours even when you are playing just the story casually). Sometimes that can get overdone (like the Pokemon 2000 movie, in which most of them just appeared to appear and had not really much significance even to enrich the settings of the very plot, like this one tries and succeeds in establishing with the new city). Which isn't really a problem tbh, but I would rather treat it as a bonus at that point. And iirc, even in this movie, by the third act, there's quite A LOT of different Pokemon (some different, and some repeated) in the streets just for cameo spoiler[during the whole parade incident]. The only problem I've found with variety was probably the fact that spoiler[I could find at least one of each type except for Steel (correct me if I'm wrong)]. Otherwise, this was a pretty good amount for a first movie, especially when a lot of the Pokemon shown played a nice roll in certain parts of the movie instead of just being background fodder (some of them actually had more of a role than some of the secondary cast lel). Which brings to the point I actually agree...
Considering that anyone other than Pikachu and Tim were mostly extra at best, with very few minutes of screentime if not seconds (yes, that "important" person), with the exception of that girl, kinda, I don't really think the secondary cast was really too much of the focus at all and was never intended to be fair. Everyone wanted to see Deadtective Poolkachu goodness and his chemistry with the main character which is his partner for the rest of the movie, and we kinda got exactly that. It kinda went with a Conan Doyle-like approach and treated the other characters in the "Mystery" more like plot devices with defining characteristics and some character development by the end, than an actually impactful presence to the other characters outside the main storyline in which they are inserted for very specific reasons. But for that exact reason, it works in here since they were indeed giving more attention towards other elements and mostly the major core to the plot instead of giving more depth they didn't really need for this kind of script. Last edited by danpmss on Fri May 10, 2019 12:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I think the reviewers here give out A's too easily for blockbuster Hollywood movies. It might be a good piece of entertainment but I strongly suspect it is not something artistically accomplished to deserve an A score.
There are movies based on videogames made in other countries besides the US. In Japan there are many movies based on videogames that are good, for instance, the Clannad movie from 2007 was good (although weaker than the TV show), and Clannad is a videogame. I actually liked the Warcraft movie a lot. Although I enjoyed it for its super over the top quality it is a movie that was effectively entertaining, much better than those Avengers movies for instance in that regard. By the way I think that Clannad: Afterstory is the best piece of film media (TV show/movie/short) based on a videogame ever made. Visual novels are perhaps the best kind of videogame to adapt into a narrative medium such as film. |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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I'm pretty sure spoiler[I saw at least a Magnemite somewhere, plus there's the Dialga statue in Howard's office]. Speaking of part of that... spoiler[why were the statues Dialga, Palkia, and Arceus, instead of D, P, and Giratina]? |
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steelmirror
 Posts: 342 |
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Finally saw it. Freaking loved it. I'll admit I'd probably give this like a B-/C+ if it were not a pokemon movie, but....well it's a pokemon movie! Pikachu is incredibly adorable, the world feels and looks great, and the main duo and Ken Watanabe are good enough to carry an otherwise weak cast.
You basically know whether you'll like this already if you liked the trailer. My friends and I dressed up in pokemon onesies after work to see it and had a blast. Solid A from me, heartily recommend it to anyone who likes pokemon and isn't too grown up for a little wholesome fluffy fun. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2204 |
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Pretty much. I know some will argue Mortal Kombat was good, but....no, that movie merely competent, not good. That runs completely on the rose-tinted glasses industry. But anyway, good to hear we've got ourselves a winner. Though I dread the upcoming Sonic movie once again making the average plunge at least we got this before then. Now to see if Legendary starts bugging Nintendo so they can make stuff based on other properties. You just know some chucklehead would see Fire Emblem and try to pitch it as Game of Thrones |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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It only took a couple days - and the full Detective Pikachu movie has already been leaked! It's even uploaded on Youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAA_yWX8ycQ (Hint: don't watch it if ya want to get spoiled!) |
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Oggers
 Posts: 362 Location: Ontario, Canada |
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That Meowth is pretty much exclusive to the anime series. No other Meowth in the franchise can speak like he can, and he only learned to speak through sheer force of will. That said, I'm glad to hear a mostly positive review on this movie. As a long-time Pokemon fan, I've been looking forward to it and I'm going to see it tonight! |
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tygerchickchibi
 Posts: 1448 |
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I watched this at least twice. Then I saw the movie yesterday. I'll be watching it again today. I encourage all of you to watch it. I'm going to agree with @danpmss here. I saw a lot of different pokemon, even some I didn't recognize because I actually stopped watching it after the Jotoh arc. I watched a few epsodes of the other seasons last year but I never was consistent. I don't remember a lot of Pokemon in the show, tbh. I think it's pretty accurate in terms of representation. I ain't gonna lie, though. I think Psyduck is the real star of the movie. Yeah Pikachu is there, but I genuinely liked the interaction between him and Lucy. Lucy wasn't 100% likeable but she did remind me of a less annoying Misty. Loved Charizard. Annndd.... spoiler[the fight scene with Ditto was hilariously amazing. You can't stop staring at its face when it transforms into other people/pokemon. ] Adding it to my list of blu-rays when it comes on home release. |
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danpmss
Posts: 764 |
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Sorry, but Visual Novels are SO MUCH MORE of a full blown virtual book with (sometimes) "choose your own adventure" elements of a sort than a videogame that I can't really agree with that statement, maybe with the exception of heavily hybrid examples with loads and loads of gameplay such Danganronpa and Phoenix Wright (and those are exceptions pretty much, there are much more purely text heavy VNs than gameplay focused ones). Calling them a game is more by definition for their minor interactive (or not, some don't even have choices at all and are straight books through and through) elements (in fact, vndb doesn't even classify as a VN if it isn't more of a book than a game). Also the Clannad movie was quite the bad and lackluster adaptation, especially compared to what this movie did to its barebones source material game. Last edited by danpmss on Sat May 11, 2019 1:48 am; edited 1 time in total |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5920 |
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That was the street fighter movie, the original MK movie was good certainly better than Annihilation.
Just like the Detective Pikachu movie thrives on nostalgia to appeal to people who grew up with the games/anime? |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Old saying that Warner, and especially Legendary, has never...ever...EVER learned: "Never greenlight that sequel on Thursday afternoon or Monday morning--You'll live to regret it." 
Nope, sorry, we already have __________ (Pick response as needed, depending on individual taste: - Van Damme "Street Fighter" - Doom - Prince of Persia - the first "Mortal Kombat", with the Highlander guy) Warner's US-pandering dependence on Ryan Reynolds keeps it just a hair from being __Street Fighter__, but gotta admit, the CGI on the other Pokemon brings it pretty darn close.
And I'll just have to keep looking for a good copy of Miike Takahashi's live-action "Ace Attorney": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIi44sSQCDs Last edited by EricJ2 on Mon May 13, 2019 10:05 am; edited 2 times in total |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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I agree, it's pretty clear given all the main Pokemon in the movie are all Gen I Pokemon. It was clearly made for a more casual Pokemon Go audience. Giving the main girl a Koduck like Kasumi had, and Mewtwo being a main figure almost felt like they were trying to make it their own version of the anime in a way, specifically Mewtwo Strikes Back. While the movie is not as bad as I thought, I think it's a pretty poor representation of the games, especially the one it's supposed to be based on which is has very little resemblance to. The movie looked nothing like how the world of Pokemon actually looks like, and is more of a "What if Pokemon were in OUR world" type of scenario, hense why the Pokemon CG is all terrifying and don't look like how they do in the game. Not one of the worst video game movies Hollywood has made, but it definitely doesn't hold a candle to the anime films, but those can't be released theatrically in America anymore so they have to go with a live-action attempt. |
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