Pokémon Detective Pikachu Review

When it comes to icons of video gaming Pikachu is one of the most famous. He is the mascot of the Pokémon franchise, leading the anime, the games, and now the live-action movie.

Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) is a loner who has given up on his dream to be a Pokémon trainer. When he receives a phone call about his absentee father’s death Tim travels to Ryme City, a city where humans and Pokémon live in harmony. Yet there is more to his father’s death than a car accident and soon becomes embroiled with a mystery that involves a talking Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) and a purple gas that make Pokémon extremely aggressive.

The key to why Pokémon Detective Pikachu was two-fold. The first being the influences upon the film and second was the respect paid to the source material. Pokémon Detective Pikachu uses ideas that were in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Zootopia. Both were family friendly mysteries and had some shared stories ideas. Tim was like Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, both jaded figures who lost their passion after a tragedy – Eddie’s was his love for comedy and Toons, Tim’s being Pokémon. Like Zootopia the main character travels to a seemingly utopian city where the peace could be shattered.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu also shares those films’ chalk-and-cheese dynamic. Tim is a young man who is forced into the investigation and an eager, coffee addicted electric mouse. And Tim had rejected Pokémon, so was forced to have an incredibly vocal one.

The heart of the film was the relationship between Tim and Pikachu – it follows the lyric from the theme song ‘you teach me and I teach you.’ Tim rediscovers his love for Pokémon and finds out he has a knack for investigating thanks to Pikachu and develops a much-needed friendship. The pair have a great rapport with each other and Reynolds’ was hilarious as the electric mouse. Reynolds described the role as being like Deadpool without the naughty words – and that was pretty accurate. Reynolds does a lot of wisecracking and comes out with some funny lines. My favourite comedy moments were when Tim and Pikachu interrogate Mr. Mime and Pikachu’s interactions with a Psyduck.

Because of the mystery storyline Pokémon Detective Pikachu pays homage to the film noir genre.  There are dark, messy apartments, neon-lit streets, featuring a femme fatale, visits to shady areas, and a detective with a drinking problem. In Pikachu’s case; coffee.

Video game adaptations have a poor record with the best ones rarely raise above decent. Even talented directors like Duncan Jones and Justin Kurzel have struggled with this type of adaptation and Nintendo have been hesitant to make another film after the 1993’s Super Mario Bros.

Video game adaptations do have some inbuilt disadvantages. Many video games have thin to no stories, especially older video games. One of the draws of video games is they are interactive, and more modern video games are cinematic in quality which leads to the question what’s the point of a movie adaptation.

In theory Pokémon Detective Pikachu shouldn’t work because it was based on a spin-off game instead of the main series. The film does not follow the main premise of the games – unsupervised 10-year-olds roaming the wilds and forcing animals to compete in legalised cock-fights. But it does.

The special effect artists do a great job realising the Pokémon. They keep to the designs from the anime whilst adding fur, scales, or add more colours to the eyes to make the creatures look more realistic. Pikachu and Pancham were incredibly cute and Pokémon like Charizard were realised with effect. Whilst First Gen Pokémon dominated the film later generation’s did get some screentime like Aopom, Torterra, and Snubbull.

The film opened a lot like the original anime film where Mewtwo escapes from a scientific facility. It shows respect to other adaptations and a nice little nod for longtime fans.

The screening I attended had a lot of kids in the audiences and they enjoyed themselves. This is a great sign for Warner Bros. and Nintendo who should make a lot of money from it. Pokémon Detective Pikachu is one of the best video game adaptation – being an enjoyable film for kids and adults who are big kids.