Probably deserving of 3 stars but I'll go with 4 just because. The movie is good. Has the potential to be great if not epic but it didn't quite get there. I'm not the biggest anime fan but even as an adult I can enjoy a good old fashion Pokemon movie. Obviously this isn't anime, just trying to give context. I absolutely loved how this took the Pokemon characters & brought them to real life. I loved the human interaction, the small but funny jokes that Pikachu cracks rather often.
What I think it was missing that could have made an a truly epic movie.... Pokemon! Yeah your like what? Lol it was probably hard to find a balance between Pokemon & human actors,I get it but this movie needed more Pokemon. Until the end, it's mostly just humans with the occasional Pokemon insert (aka Pikachu). Rarely do I wish a movie was 3 hours but honestly had they extended it to 3 hours & put more Pokemon throughout the entire movie, epic.
I think this set the ground work for an epic movie in the future. Once again this movie was good but I think, since it's the first of its kind, bringing anime to real life that it set the stepping stone for what I hope will be one of my favorite movies of all time in the future (of somebody decides to create it)