"Pokèmon Detective Pikachu" is a Marvel of Cuteness, Featuring an Adorable Ryan Reynolds
By: Keaton Marcus
60/100 “sweet/sour”
After the three-hour long "Avengers: Endgame", "Pokemon Detective Pikachu", is the 100-minute, marvel of cuteness that we needed to cleanse our palates. The film is based on the massive hit video game and is also the first sprouted live-action-ish installment to the dreary "Pokèmon" film franchise, and the best. It might not be compelling in any way, and occasionally, things get messy--but younger viewers, die-hard fans and maybe even some outliers are likely to enjoy the fun adventure featuring the brilliant Ryan Reynolds as the title character. Also, in terms of video-game adaptations (mentioned before), the previous installments make "Pikachu" seem like the "Godfather" for kids. The titular character and beloved Pokèmon is partnered with Tim Goodman (Justice Smith), combining a kid-friendly mystery to a solid, enjoyable buddy-cop film. Overall, this long-awaited, big-budgeted adaptation scores with the references, youngsters and fans--you"ll likely "aww", laugh--and well, be overwhelmed at the extremely overcomplicated plotting.
The plot and story are simple, well...not really. Basically, Tim Goodman (Smith) is living a quiet life as an employee in an insurance company, at least until he hears that his father has passed in an accident. Tim travels to Ryme City, a place where humans and Pokèmon live in harmony to pack up his father's apartment--that's when he, and the audience meet the wisecracking, rosy-cheeked fluffball, Pikachu (voiced excellently by Ryan Reynolds) sneaking around in his dad's place. That's when the mystery starts, Pikachu (who is his father's Pokèmon partner) claims that he survived the crash, but then an underused Bill Nighy tells us he died and was blasted by the lab-created Mewtew--yes, by now, the audiences should be scratching their heads--how do they fit a plot of this magnitude in about 100 minutes, well its all over the place. Fans and kids forgive it, and you might--but director Rob Letterman should have gone with a more easy-going, light-headed storyline. Still, who the heck cares, the film is a blast.
What "Detective Pikachu" gets really right, is the impressive character animation, and dazzling special effects--and Pikachu looks very true to the show. When fellow video-game adaptation, "Sonic The Hedgehog" released its first teaser trailer recently, fans on social media, and the internet alike--collectively bombed the look at the titular character--"his nose is too pointy", "his teeth are too big", forcing director Jeff Fowler to redesign the character. That's a problem that "Detective Pikachu" passes straight by--how, well by investing time and money into the CGI effects--tagged with a very expensive 150M budget, the special effects are occasionally overused, but effective. The creative set pieces and the delightful cuteness of Ryme City are also likely to appeal to fans of the game, and the very realistic character design on the title character is astonishing--a thing most video-game adaptations do not get right.
Ryan Reynolds mentioned earlier in the review, does a fantastic job at the role of Pikachu. While we're all disappointed that Reynolds may not have dropped any F-bombs, as he did in the R-rated "Deadpool", the kid-friendly film still gives the character a hysterically clever caffeine "addiction", plenty of laughs and immediate chemistry with the surrounding cast. Pikachu is also just adorable, yes, he has the sarcastic voice of a jack-ass, but his fluffy persona is impossible to resist--really, what I'm trying to say is, you're going to be resisting the urge to run up to the screen and try to hug the furry "ball". There is plenty of entertaining moments given to the wisecracking fur-ball--including when Pikachu and Tim stumble into an illegal Pokèmon battle, where he is forced to fight a drugged Charizard and forgets how to use his powers, and claims he "can't do it in front of people, look away, everybody"--otherwise, Mr. Mime even gets a cameo and a scene with Pikachu--which will appeal to the fans. If you aren't a total geek-out for the franchise, just go see it for Ryan Reynolds' terrific performance.
The final verdict is: “Detective Pikachu” delivers laughs here and there, and delivers a brilliant performance by Ryan Reynolds as the iconic character, the video-game adaptation never stretches it’s promising premise as far as it should…$TREAM IT