Pokémon: Detective Pikachu: A Shockingly Good Video Game Movie

It seems like it's an unspoken law in Hollywood: If you're going to make a video game movie, it's probably not going to be good. For some reason they can't crack the formula. However, there was a glimmer of hope when the first trailer came out for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. It managed to take what fans loved about the franchise and tried to expand it to a broader audience. Does the final product break the video game movie curse? That's what I'm here to tell you.

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is directed by Rob Letterman and stars Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, and Ken Watanabe. Tim (Smith) one day finds a Pikachu (Reynolds) that only he can understand. Now the two team up to find out what happened to Tim's dad. With all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

If you couldn't tell by the title, yes, Detective Pikachu breaks the video game movie curse. By no means is it perfect, but it is a fun, cute little movie. There were several things that I really dug about this film. If you told me a few years ago that Ryan Reynolds was going to be playing Pikachu, the most iconic Pokémon of all time, I would've laughed right in your face. For some reason, it works. Yes, it's just Ryan Reynolds talking through a Pikachu, but it just falls into place. He's hysterical as the little Pokémon. Some of the jokes the adults will get and others the whole family will laugh at. He also has great chemistry with Tim, which is important because the movie revolves around the two of them. Tim matches Pikachu's sarcasm perfectly and this makes for a really funny buddy-cop dynamic. The best parts of the movie isn't the big action sequences, but instead it's just when the two of them are talking. I also really loved the world itself in this movie. You could tell the filmmakers were fans of this property. They somehow managed to take the designs of the cartoon and games and make it look believable. These characters look like they could live in our world, but aren't horrifying to look at (COUGH COUGH Sonic). It was a breath of fresh air since filmmakers nowadays have a knack for making everything realistic when the designs work perfectly well as they are. All they needed to do was add a little texture to them and voila, they created a believable Pokémon world. It was cool seeing all of the different Pokémon. One that really stands out (besides Pikachu) is Psyduck, who is constantly anxious and, if he's not calmed down, he will explode. It was nice seeing a Pokémon like me. Maybe I shouldn't have typed that. The effects were very well done in the movie. Like I mentioned before, the filmmakers reached a perfect balance of realism and cartoon.

There's quite a bit to like about this movie, but it does have its flaws, as all movies do. It takes a little while to get going, and, for a bit, I was getting a tad bit impatient. I wanted to see Pikachu and it took a little bit to get to him. Some things in the story don't really work that well and I wasn't really happy with the twist (no spoilers). The movie does suffer from being a little bit predictable and because of this, the detective aspect fell a little short for me. Not all of the performances are great, either. There was one character, Lucy Stevens (Newton), that got a little annoying after a while. It's odd because she didn't annoy me the whole movie, though.

To wrap everything up, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu breaks the video game movie curse. It has a great cast, particularly Reynolds and Smith, Pikachu and Tim have great chemistry, the Pokémon themselves are awesome, the humor is great, the designs are beautiful, and the visuals are very well done. The movie is held back, though, by being a tad bit predictable, dragging on in the beginning a little bit, and some performances weren't that great. Overall, this was a very good movie and I'm excited to see where this Pokémon cinematic universe goes! If I were to rate it, I'd give Pokémon: Detective Pikachu a 7.5-8/10.