Pokemon Detective Pikachu (Review)
Pokemon Detective Pikachu Manages to be More than Just a Cute CGI Character in a Hat.
It feels like my generation grew up with Pokemon (personally I was all about the Gameboy game, cards, and even the show as a kid), so there was a lot riding on Detective Pikachu not to be another terrible videogame adaptation. Going into it, I was simply hoping that it wouldn’t be a total piece of garbage, but I didn’t expect it to actually be this good. Detective Pikachu finds success by crafting a solid noir tale toned down just enough to take place in the world of Pokemon. The end result is a film that is much better than it has any real right to be.
By now, it’s hard to imagine that anyone on the planet doesn’t know what Pokemon are (at least no one who would actually be reading this review). The games became a pop-culture phenomenon that even manages to get kids to go outside and exercise (for a brief moment in time). Detective Pikachu takes all the magic of a world with tiny super powered adorable animals and injects a full-fledged noir tale into it. The movie tells that tale of Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) who has to come to terms with the sudden death of his father who was a detective in a city where humans and Pokemon lived side by side. What seems like an accident quickly turns suspicious when Tim meets his father’s Pokemon partner, a Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) that he can somehow understand (Pokemon are infamous for only being able to say their names over and over again). The two join forces to find out what really happened to Tim’s father and save the delicate balance between human’s and Pokemon before it’s too late.
It might seem like the real star of Detective Pikachu is the titular talking Pokemon, but I have to hand it to the visual effects team for bringing a piece of my childhood to the big screen in such a successful way. This is no easy task (especially given how upsetting the recent Sonic movie trailer was for fans). The film manages to keep the cartoonish spirit of the games and anime alive, which is great because totally realistic looking Pokemon would be incredibly disturbing. Detective Pikachu manages to create a world of incredibly detailed pocket monsters with becoming full-blown nightmare fuel (though there is a moment with a Ditto that will haunt my dreams for years to come). Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of thrilling scenes featuring threatening Pokemon, but Detective Pikachu manages to keep a light-hearted tone even in it’s darkest moments.
Reynolds proves to be the heart of Detective Pikachu. We’re all familiar with his foul-mouthed antics from the Deadpool movies, but he manages to tone it down for this PG flick. Even still, his character manages to bring plenty of comedy to his role. Adults will love the banter between him and Justice Smith as the two tackle plenty of Noir tropes. He even tosses out a few turns of phrase that feel like they’d be right at home in a Humphrey Bogart film. Despite the joke centric approach to his character though, Reynolds is the backbone for Detective Pikachu. Which isn’t to say that Justice Smith isn’t good, but he tends to buckle a little when it comes to the more emotional sequences of the film. While Smith might not be able to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to Detective Pikachu, he doesn’t have to thanks to the delightful rapport he shares with Reynolds throughout the movie.
I’ll admit that Detective Pikachu definitely has the nostalgia factor going for it. I grew up on the original 151 Pokemon and finally getting to see them on the big screen (along with the dozens of others from later generations) made my inner kid squeal with joy. However, my excitement was hardly a free pass for this film. So many other movies have tried to cash in on cherished childhood memories (see Transformers or G.I. Joe), but Detective Pikachu managed to appeal to both my inner child and the adult version of myself. It’s a film that doesn’t take a moment for granted and throws itself wholeheartedly into doing right by the audience. This doesn’t mean that it panders by any sake of the imagination, but it took the stakes seriously. Because of this, Detective Pikachu is just another example of why it’s so good to be a geek these days.
I was delighted to find that Detective Pikachu wasn’t just a movie that tried to cash in on a global phenomenon. Director Rob Letterman clearly sees this as a neo-noir film that takes place in a very special setting and sticks to his guns when it comes to that. Because of that, the Pokemon are definitely prominent when it comes to the story, but are never a crutch meant to carry the film. Instead, he makes sure to inject plenty of noir elements into the film with plenty of twists and turns to the tale. I was honestly impressed that the film kept me guessing as long as it did. Not only does Detective Pikachu do Pokemon justice, but it just might be one of the best video game adaptations of all time. That might not be saying much, but trust me when I say that it’s a pretty big deal that Hollywood has finally figured out how to do it right.
