Reviews

After twenty years, a classic gaming franchise has finally come to life on Hollywood’s big screen

Editor Ethan Miller

Video Game movies have had a long run of terrible to possible adaptations. There have been exceptions, yes, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva being a good example, but they have been few and far between. Detective Pikachu isn’t the first video game movie, or even first Pokémon movie, but it is the first Pokémon movie to have a major Hollywood backing, and is it quite the spectacle.

Detective Pikachu is directly based on a 3DS game of the same name, with a few twists to make it stand apart, but the core premise comes from that game. The story centres around Tim and Lucy as they work with the titular Detective Pikachu to find Tim’s missing father. It’s a fairly simplistic plot, but one that works with plenty of absolutely brilliant twists and turns that always make it interesting. There are a lot of fun moments that never failed to make me smile, the jokes were funny and almost always landed, and there were even a few depressing moments in between to further enrich the plot.

The characters are all likeable too, with both the main human characters having traits that bounce off of each other fairly well. Ryan Reynolds as Detective Pikachu is absolutely hilarious, a surprise to nobody, but all of his jokes and banter between the different Pokémon and Tim were always a hoot. One of the B plots that kind of got the shaft was the proposed love plot between Tim and Lucy. While it starts of as Detective Pikachu making snide comments about Tim’s inexperience when talking to girls, I was surprised when it was more than just jokes, mostly to the detriment of the entire arc. By the time you realise their feelings are developing, the movie has already hit its climax. It ends up feeling forced and rushed, not altogether being believable. They definitely could’ve benefited from extra scenes together to flesh out their relationship.

The main shining force of the film, however, is the world itself. One of my favourite scenes is when Tim arrives in Ryme City for the first time. Getting to see how the Pokémon interact with the world is incredibly interesting, as the bond between people and Pokémon is played off in a way that’s incredibly different compared to the games. They live alongside people, not being stuck in Pokeballs, so getting to see Squirtle helping firefighters put out a fire, for an example, was a really cool moment.

The Pokémon themselves are all wonderfully designed. Each Pokémon comes to life in ways that haven’t been seen before. They’ve been imagined in a realistic setting, making the world richer. The ways that they interact with the city makes it all believable, an impressive feat.

The world comes to life even better with the killer soundtrack. Henry Jackman does a wonderful job giving the city a futuristic vibe with lots of synthwave for a mix of orchestral and techno tracks. The stand out to me was the main theme of Ryme City, with the main motif of the theme being used throughout the soundtrack.

There are quite a few cool references to the games as well. Things like Arceus being name dropped by Pikachu in an off-hand comment referencing its role as the god of the Pokémon world, Kanto being mentioned, even events of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue getting a reference. There’s so many offhand mentions and references for hardcore Pokémon fans that it helps even more to flesh out the world. Ryme City is plastered with signs referencing items or Pokémon from the games, making the world feel coherent with them.

Detective Pikachu blew my expectations out of the water and then some. Bringing the world of Pokémon to life in live action was a daunting task, but at the end of the day, it just works. The world of Pokémon has never felt so real, making Detective Pikachu that much better as one of the best game to movie adaptations in existence.