Certificate – PG
Directed By – Rob Letterman
Starring – Justice Smith, Ryan Reynolds (voice), Kathryn Newton, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighty, Chris Geere.
Running Time – 104 Minutes (1 Hour 44 Minutes)
20 years after originally watching the animated series and playing the game on the wonderful Game Boy Colour, I never thought at the age of 26 I’ll be getting excited once again about Pokémon.
Here are many kids born in the 90s that will feel like bringing cereal as Detective Pikachu comes out in cinemas.
Disclaimer: Don’t bring cereal to the cinema, you’ll be a dick.
What’s Detective Pikachu About?
Following the disappearance of detective Harry Goodman, his 21-year-old son Tim (Smith) investigates what happened. Joining him is the wise-cracking, adorable super-sleuth Detective Pikachu (Reynolds) as they chase clues throughout the neon-lit streets of Ryme City.
Is It Any Good?
It’s crazy to think it took this long for a live-action film in the world of Pokémon, but it’s great that we did because this film is an utter delight.
Before talking about the film and the cast, the art department and VFX teams deserved all the plaudits as each Pokémon and the world itself is beautifully created from the fluffy, adorableness of both Pikachu and Psyduck to the dinosaur, lizard texture of Charizard.
Additionally, every time Psyduck spoke brought a Cheshire cat grin on my smile.
Ryme City is a wonderful mix of London and Tokyo and would love to live there in a heartbeat.
Now to the cast, Smith and Nighty are brilliant.
Obviously, Nighty can do no wrong. Whenever he’s on screen he lifts the scene and had one of my favourite scenes in the film opposite Smith.
Smith is a leading man for the now and future, he helped carry the film with eases with a great arc. His chemistry with Reynolds’ Pikachu was a joy to watch and it shows Smith’s acting skills to make it feel he had a relationship with this CGI character.
Moving to Reynolds, he brings fun and much-needed humour. It’s clear to see this is Deadpool-lite as I haven’t seen 42-year-old this family-friendly since Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place.
However, his performance is more than just the fun, funny guy. He brings a lot of warmth and heart opposite Smith.
As for the director Letterman, he has done a fantastic job of making this a family film that felt like watching some like when I was a kid in the 90s and this is perfect to watch as a family or as a date.
Finally, Henry Jackman did a decent job embedding an old school video game score using techno and a full orchestra.
It goes without saying this is a great video game movie and Warner Bros has two of the best as it now joins last year Tomb Raider.
I look forward to seeing more from this new world.
Anything Bad About This Film?
Only a few issues.
There were a few moments with the CGI that looked a little off.
Honestly, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Newton’s performance as I felt the character was a little basic and sort of forgettable but did have a great comedic line.
This is nothing against Newton, I thought she was great in Blockers, but hopefully, with the sequel we get something more from her.
Verdict
A great video game movie. It’s funny, fun, heartwarming with great performances from Reynolds, Smith and Nighty. A wonderful family film.
The Bear Cave 