Film Review - Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (2019)

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu is a live action Pokemon movie concerning Tim (Justice Smith) who goes to Ryme City a City where humans and Pokemon live in harmony together and he’s gone there to investigate the sudden death of his father Harry but one night while returning home he comes across Harry’s old Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) and the two team up to solve the mystery of what happened to Harry.

Detective Pikachu is not a bad movie per se there is a lot in the film that’s fun to watch but it also has a pretty big headache like Psyduck has as well but before I delve more into that I’ll write about what does work.

And that is the world this film creates of Ryme City, the visual world building on display here is terrific you really get swept up in this fictional city and you find yourself spotting all the signs and alleyways and posters on the walls as well as one particular Pokemon that you should avoid at all costs unless your wearing ear muffs and one section in an underground stadium is particularly cool.

The film also tries to develop an intriguing mystery to it concerning some huge aspects to the world of Pokemon and Ryan Reynolds is always good fun to watch and he is clearly having fun voicing Pikachu and doing his Deadpool routine for a younger audience given they couldn’t really go to those movies as their rightly rated MA15+.

But about the Psyduck esque headache the movie has and its in the script, Kathryn Newton’s dialogue first of all is atrocious and she performs it so over the top that every time she came on screen I was put off by how cartoonish she got at times and I am someone who is hungry for serious displays of journalism in film now but this one didn’t work.

And also the script doesn’t really resolve its central mystery very well either, it gets it off to a very promising start and you find yourself following the clues but when all the pieces come together to form the overall jigsaw puzzle I found it a little underwhelming and also this movie desperately needed a much stronger villain to tie it all together and the Pokemon mythos has that sitting there but it doesn’t use it at all and I sorely wish it had used it as the ones that are there are grossly underwhelming.

And this to happen after Thanos had his own 2 parter in the Avengers franchise really makes this feel like a critical hit that cripples this movie.

But I’ll stop there as Detective Pikachu is a fun enough watch but its script issues are of a Psyduck enough headache to hold the film back, 2 and a half out of 5.