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Post by RaceFanX on May 12, 2019 18:12:33 GMT -5
Purrloin only shows up in the background a few times from what I saw. The living Eevee is cameo that's over in a few seconds and mostly consists of it evolving into a Flareon that isn't seen again either but there is an Eevee ballon during the climax.
Notably this is the first blockbuster in a while to seemingly deliberately avoid a post-credits teaser of any kind. We do get some cool end credits though picturing what all the main characters from the movie and their Pokemon would look like if they were drawn in the style of the game boxes/anime.
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Post by Trey_Vore on May 15, 2019 6:07:57 GMT -5
I concur Race. I did enjoy the movie even if it wasn't perfect. Predictable yes, probably due the mystery genre.
They had a lot of starter Pokémon (makes sense) and well, they avoided teasers for future movies probably because they had no idea if this would work or not. Though they probably avoided featuring some Pokémon like Chimchar or Mankey because they were already featuring Aipom.
I was a bit disappointed they showcased a lot of similar Pokémon but that could be they were trying to keep the budget under control.
That didn't stop me from enjoying the movie though. Can't wait to see what the sequel will bring (it's already made back it's budget in the first weekend).
So, until then...
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Post by Trey_Vore on May 10, 2020 23:09:45 GMT -5
Okay, now that the movie reached its one year anniversary, I typed up a review for my Facebook account:
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Director: Rob Letterman Cast: Ryan Reynolds (Detective Pikachu), Justice Smith (Tim Goodman), Kathryn Netwon (Lucy Stevens), Bill Nighy (Howard Clifford), Omar Chaparro (Sebastian), Ken Wantanabe (Detective Hideo Yoshida) Runtime: 104 min. MPAA rating: PG (action/peril, some rude and suggestive humor, and thematic elements)
Do you remember one year ago what it was like going to see a movie at the multiplex before anyone first said anything about a virus? I do, as I remember seeing an eagerly anticipated movie about a wildly popular video game series featuring a character that is iconic enough to be seen on a yearly basis in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
Set in a world where humans live alongside Pokémon, when ace detective Harry Goodman goes missing, his son Tim goes back to Ryme City to find some answers. Back inside the apartment, he must pair up with a talking, wisecracking Pikachu to find some answers and unravel the mystery of what happened to his father. Pairing up with reporter Lucy Stevens and her Psyduck, they start chasing the clues and discover a plot that could very much threaten the existence of the Pokémon universe. Can Tim and Detective Pikachu save everyone?
We’ve seen movie ideas come from the darnedest places. We have had movies based on literary novels, historical events, comic books, Sunday funnies, sporting events, cartoons, TV shows, toys, novelty songs, you name it chances are there’s a movie based on something. While there is definitely money to be made on them, there is a vast assortment of movies about video games. Thus far, they have not been too successful. A part of the reason, as I once said, is you kinda need to build some type of world that may not translate to real life. Then there is also the cultural aspect: what may mean something in Japan may be something very different in the United States. A video game is great fun when you are actively playing it, but there is the aspect of a pinata involved: it’s fun to hit and whack around, but it’s no fun by itself. You’d probably rather play the game than just watch it. Guess what you do with a movie?
This becomes especially true when it comes to movies that come from the big N. I remember back in 1993, the oldest example of a video game movie was the movie based on their flagship franchise, Super Mario Bros.. At a glance you just play as a guy who walks around catching some mushrooms while jumping on turtles and other, sentient mushrooms. Sure it serves a plot where you are trying to save a princess from an evil turtle/dragon hybrid monster but there’s not a lot of plot to go on. So how does that translate to a movie? They would try to give an evolution plot and a cyberpunk universe set where you have two plumbers that try to save a girl who’s actually a princess from another dimension and save both worlds from the mayor who is actually an evolved version of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and he wants to merge both and de-evolve the humans. Beyond some names and occasional references, there was not a lot of connections to the Mario universe. Some people also blame the weakness of the Mario franchise: Mario may work great as a video game character, but you don’t play the Mario games for things like plot or character development so Mario just doesn’t work quite as well when translated to cartoons or cinema. Ultimately it worked about as well as you expect. Do I need to remind you it came out the same weekend as Jurassic Park?
With that in mind, the suits at Nintendo had very strong doubts their video game franchises would really work in film. A long wait would occur before we would see another film adaptation based on a first party Nintendo game. That next adaptation would be about their second-most profitable game series with multiple game iterations and a long-running anime series with several movies that was running since 1998. And being that I am no stranger to this type of movie, who better to review it? After all I typed a nearly 40-page article on Street Fighter: the Movie explaining why I liked it (well I had help from the fact I did use plenty of pictures), so here we go.
First off, I will say I think it may have been a smart move to make a movie based on a spin-off game rather than the main game series or a live-action adaptation of the long-running anime; it contains more of a narrative than the primary game where going around to different towns training to beat Gym Leaders was the objective. It makes for a fun game, but it seems rather listless and repetitive if you were to see it as a movie. I am also glad they decided not to provide an elaborate explanation on why the humans are living side-by-side with these Pokémon characters; they just set it up as that is just the way it’s supposed to be in a Pokémon world and that’s it. Best not to try to overthink it.
As the main hero of the story, Tim Goodman is supposed to be the everyman: he originally was a child with great ambitions but unfortunately, real life got in the way and now he has to live a more conventional life with a 9-to-5 job. His friends may have tried to get him to try to find a Pokémon partner to be a friend especially in the news his father has mysteriously vanished but it doesn’t seem to work. But when he discovers Detective Pikachu it helps him remember his original ambitions and to remind him that just because you are no longer a child does not mean you must give up on what you love.
I do remember how back before we got to see the movie one of the trailers had the song “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler play. I felt it was appropriate, being that Tim’s last name is “Goodman” and the last time outside of Footloose where that song was playing was back when I saw Shrek 2. Pokémon may have been introduced in the end of the 90s, but oddly enough, 1980s values seem to work perfectly for it.
Because Pokémon don’t exist in real life, this is going to be a very CGI-heavy movie. There are a number of Pokémon that appear in the movie and they would of course need to make the jump from a video game sprite to flesh-and-blood characters that would interact with real people. Admittedly they do a very good job, with many Pokémon characters being based on real-life animals they don’t appear they maintain enough of their original essence. Another factor is because the Pokémon have an integral role in the story they don’t seem like they are just there for decoration. It doesn’t feel like you could just cut the Pokémon out of the movie and you don’t lose anything. Save for maybe a rather freaky looking Aipom (the little purple monkey like Pokémon), they don’t look too uncanny.
As Detective Pikachu, one may have thought it was an odd choice to throw millions of dollars at the idea of having Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu, but it works because he knows how to balance taking something seriously and be a goofball at the same time. This is the actor who plays Deadpool after all. Best of all, the humor is actually pretty funny; it’s not overly limited to meta-humor and there’s plenty of wit to give a non-gamer a good laugh.
Probably the biggest flaw the movie has might just be shortcoming that comes with making a mystery: the story can be a little predictable. You can see some twists coming but that is likely just a fault of the genre of film rather than one of the movie itself. It doesn’t take the premise quite as far as you might have hoped but that is why we have sequels and Pokémon is one big, immersive world, after all the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t built in a day.
In the end, I will say that Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is a fun family movie that you should consider seeing. It works nice as a love letter to fans who grew up playing Pokémon on their Game Boys all the way back in 1998 and not restricted to them as a non-gamer can enjoy it too. Due to its success they have sequels coming and I look forward to the next movie.
So what else can we expect to see? No matter what I’m sure it will leave us saying just what Detective Pikachu says: “That’s very twisty”.
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Post by Trey_Vore on Feb 6, 2022 1:58:41 GMT -5
Well, I've been searching for info on the matter and right now it seems info on the sequel is seemingly very tight. According to Justice Smith he's not sure if it's going to be a thing. However I was looking for more answers and I did find this link, I'd be happy even if it was set in the same universe but with different characters. www.looper.com/166197/detective-pikachu-2-release-date-cast-and-plot/Then again, the game is meant to be getting a sequel too, they could be trying to keep info under wraps until then.
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Post by babclayman on Feb 6, 2022 9:25:43 GMT -5
I shall post that I really do enjoy this film, I do wonder how they may do a sequel? Set in the same Universe, Maybe.
Though, I did hear there is a “Live Action” Netflix Series coming. Think they may connect that to this film?
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Post by Trey_Vore on Feb 4, 2023 20:12:03 GMT -5
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 18, 2023 23:54:05 GMT -5
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