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Detective Pikachu Film Review

No phrase has been more ingrained into the mind of child born and raised in the early 1990’s than “Gotta catch ‘em all!” This one iconic tagline was the cry of adoration that was expressed through the entire world for the last 20 something years. The series that made an explosive impact that felt like an Earthquake felt round the world, was none other than Pokémon. Form the dearly beloved anime series that has seen nonstop love and success, to the infectious card game that has taken the competitive world by storm, video games that span different genres on many different Nintendo consoles. And if one was not able to purchase the games, you could always enjoy the movies which of course are more than 20 at the time of writing this review. One way or another, one could not escape digesting Pokémon related media. Such was the demand for Pokémon that fans around the world always wondered  and at the same time shuddered what they would look like if given the live action treatment. From fan artists that would give us reimagined version of our friendly pocket monsters to fan made and written stories with a more mature touch. 

Lo and behold, that last year the world was treated to a trailer that many never expected to see. An actual trailer for a live action film set in a Pokémon infested world. Initial reactions were mixed at first, with people complaining about how certain scenes seemed to illicit “Space Jam” levels of acting where even some of the scenes seemed stale and lifeless. And trailer by trailer the public opinion changed from “meh” to “Hey, that looks pretty good”. To showing off more and more of the beloved creatures from most of the generations, to dropping huge Easter eggs. Before the film even came out there were rumors of it being leaked online the day before its world premiere, which turned out to be brilliant marketing on behalf of a “troll” by one of the stars of the film since it was essentially an hour long skit of the titular mascot doing 1980’s exercise videos. Once this amateur reviewer got the chance to see this film, admittedly I was not as excited to see the story about to be laid out before me. But surprisingly, this is a film that caught me off guard as well as the audience of 20 somethings who wore Pokémon shirts from even way back from the 90’s. Not to go into spoiler territory, but the premise of the film is that a young man goes to Ryme City due to his father being killed in the line of duty(he was one of the city’s top detectives) and to the young man’s surprise he see that the Pokémon and humans coexist in every way from doing common jobs such as directing traffic to being the entertainment for a bar. It’s a city that forbids Pokémon battles but encourages a peaceful coexistence between the two.

After arriving to his late father’s apartment building, the young man stumbles upon a room that was modeled after the same one he had back in the town he lives, meaning that his father always wanted his son to move to the city with him. But before he could peruse the room a bit longer, a noise from the living room makes him nervous and prompts him to threaten the would be intruder, only to find out that it’s a Pikachu with a detective hat on and capable of human speech. Hijinks ensue of both the comedic and action variety and from here on out spoilers would dominate the review. But what I would like you the reader to take away from this is that the film is catered well to not only fans of the series but for those who have little to no knowledge of the series, the story is simple and condensed enough to charm any one in the mood for a fun family film. The tinges of nostalgia riddled through the movie in subtle and not so subtle ways made for an entertaining viewing experience that lasted for days in my head just replaying on a loop. All in all, watch this film it will be well worth your time.