Ethan Wang

Since video games were seen as a big money maker for the movie industry, Hollywood has produced an abundance of video game-based movies, all of which have been deemed failures. However, Detective Pikachu is finally the first in hopefully a long line of video game-based movies, that are ok and maybe even fantastic. The movie itself was good, not great, not fantastic, just good. The beginning of this film was the best part of the entire film. What really made the beginning excellent was the fact that they gave Tim a fantastic backstory of what his childhood was like. The film also did a fantastic job minimizing the amount of Pokémon that were introduced later in the series, so that they wouldn’t dissuade anybody who had only played the Red and Blue games. The film also went with a creative art direction as they made the Pokémon something that would be deemed “normal” in our society, as opposed to the cartoonish art style that people see in the video game and in the anime as well. Also, there were some really amazing jokes that were written for the film as well as a hilarious homage of Ryan Reynolds singing the Pokémon theme. However, the film did a horrendous job utilizing supporting characters in the film. None of them were really fleshed out and there was nothing about them that made them stand out from the extras in the film. Furthermore, the pacing of the film was unusual. The film would have a major event happening in one scene and then have a sort of gag happening in another seen and this would be demonstrated throughout the entirety of the film. Overall, Detective Pikachu is a film that not only kids and die-hard Pokémon fans will enjoy, but also a film that people who have no idea what Pokémon are will enjoy as well. All in all, if I were to grade this film, I would have to give it a 3.5/5.