I feel the reminder needs to be put out there because Pokemon has become such an institution beyond the videogames, with mountains of merchandise, an anime with a ton of successful movies, a trading card game, and various other bits and bobs of sell-ables. This gives Detective Pikachu a leg up on other videogame adaptations given that the concept has been successfully adapted to so many other works and mediums. It's no surprise, then, that the movie's highest points directly relate to the use of its branding.
Where Detective Pikachu shines the brightest is in its world building. The realization of Rime City, a city where Pokemon live alongside humans semi-equal partners, is done expertly well. We see Pokemon filling a variety of social roles in the background of just about every shot, and its all logically consistent and, aside from a clunky exposition dump near the beginning of the movie, self explanatory. Rime feels like a living breathing city where Pokemon happen to exist. A world that is also consistent with, at least as far as this casual fan knows, the world and continuity of the anime. There are a few call backs and references to the world of the anime that don't get in the way of knowledgeable audience's understanding of the plot and characters.
The Pokemon themselves are also incredibly well realized. As we have seen with the recent disaster that is the Sonic The Hedgehog trailer (the comparison is inevitable) there are pitfalls associated with designs intended to work in animation being made to look realistic. Detective Pikachu manages to effectively and effortlessly tow the line between realistic and cute. Every Pokemon is recognizably themselves with realistic skin textures and lighting interactions. The ones you expect to look cute look cute, the ones you expect to be a bit creepy look a bit creepy but NONE of the designs ever look unpleasant or any uglier than their game or anime counterparts. Every Pokemon also acts very much like how they act in the anime both in their abilities and physical limitations, and their personality. There is an especially brilliant and funny scene with a Mr. Mime that not only demonstrates the Pokemon's personality, but also leverages it for a great bit of comedy. Every Pokemon has character and aren't just a collection of recognizable images just thrown into the frame haphazardly. I also want to give special emphasis to the decision to have the majority of the Pokemon make realistic animal noises instead of just saying their names. It really helps ground the movie and make it more believable. The few that do just say their names are either iconic for doing so, like Pikachu, or don't seem like they would make an animal noise like Ditto.
This is all stuff the move HAD to get right. The Pokemon Company lives or dies on the quality and consistency of their branding. They're a company that exists SOLELY to manage a brand after all. So what about the stuff in the movie that isn't directly related to the branding? Well that's where things start to fall apart. While the actual writing is solid: the pacing is comfortable, the dialogue fun and reliably believable, the plot that writing is conveying is predictable, and unoriginal. From the first 20 minutes its not difficult to guess Tim's character arc, who the villain is and their motivation, what happened to Tim's dad, and even the general theme of the film. Sure, this is a movie that needs to be accessible to young children, but you don't have to be complicated to be original, and in a detective film, which the plot is trying to emulate, predictability makes for a boring experience as you watch characters discover information that you already guessed.
The character's themselves, however, go a long way to easing this boredom. Even putting aside the expectedly fun vocal performance of Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu, Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton, as Tim Goodman and Lucy Stevens respectively, manage to match his charisma playing equally entertaining and well written characters. Admittedly Tim isn't much more than a generally good guy but Justice's performance manages to enhance the charisma and relatability of the character's dialogue to make an enjoyable character. Lucy is a bit more of a character, and is given quite a bit to do but not really anything you haven't seen before. She actually reminded me a lot of Lois Lane in the 70's Superman Movie, not really a bad thing just a lot that we have seen before. Before I said that Ryan Raynold's performance as Pikachu is fun, and it is, but despite having the movie named after him he didn't really have anything to do. About 35-40% of his dialogue was clarifying things for the audience. Tim and Lucy do most of the actual detective work with the self proclaimed "world class Detective" Pikachu simply commenting on events. The fact that this is a kids movie is really no excuse for this. The plot is simplistic and predictable no one really needs Ryan Raynolds to further explain details the audience can guess and connect on their own, and I do believe 5 year olds are capable enough to do that on their own.
After you've had your fill of the excellent world building, and fun characters just about the only thing left to save this film's second half is the spectacle. There actually aren't too many action scenes in Detective Pikachu, the majority of the movie is focused on interactions between people and their Pokemon. This really works to the movie's favor. It is a detective movie after all, or at least plotted like one, so too much action would get overbearing and distract from the solid characters and writing. However, what action is in the film is indeed spectacular. The various Pokemon's powers are used interestingly and effectively, if not especially creatively, and its all very well presented. Aside from an extended escape from a genetics lab, none of the action felt overbearing, and suited the tone and pacing of the film. None of it really stands out amongst other summer blockbusters, but it really doesn't need to. It just needs to look and feel like Pokemon while being engaging.
If Detective Pikachu didn't have the branding attached it would probably have received much harsher reviews and wouldn't have reached the success that it has, but it has enough solid ideas and execution to become a cult classic with a long life on home video. As it is now its a solid and successful movie, perhaps a bit overrated, that may not be well remembered a few years down the line.
No comments:
Post a Comment