Review of 8-bit FU - Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

I was genuinely excited to see this movie. Then I was saddened by many things, including missed potential, bad writing, boring direction, incomprehensible action, lacklustre humour and a general sense of missed opportunity. But hey, at least they got some Pokémon lore right, eh? Eh?

Right, so, Detective Pikachu focuses on Tim (Justice Smith, trying to get through this movie fast so he can go back to the Get Down set), who learns of his father’s death and travels to Ryme City to investigate. There he meets Pikachu, his dad’s cute furry little partner also investigating the seemingly suspicious nature of Tim’s dad’s death as well. Loud noises, clichés, boredom and overlong hysterics follow through this sad museum exhibit of wasted potential.

Even though I am not a Pokémon fan, I know of the codex’s and the decades-long lore of all these crazy creatures, and I see that there is an amazing potential for a TV show or a movie to bring these crazy creatures to light. And there has indeed been a long-running animated TV show which people seem to love, so there’s some precedent, right?

How do you waste all of this potential?!

Well, Rob Letterman, who previously directed the wonderful guilty pleasure Monsters vs Aliens with Conrad Vernon, seems to think Pokémon, instead of battling each other in over-the-top ways continuously ala the masterful Pacific Rim, should be consigned to boring clichés instead of really doing anything cool, ala the second Pacific Rim. There’s no real sense of wonder to the Pokémon, as they’re used in ways which remove any imagination and just seem… blah. Aside from the eponymous detective himself, nothing feels imaginative or interesting about these creatures in the slightest, and the CG work is less crossing the uncanny valley and more going full Offa’s Dyke on that poor valley.

This supposedly cute Pokemon looks like Oscar the Grouch's offspring from a chance encounter with a duck who was moonlighting as a mariachi.

The best part of this movie is Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu, as the CG work is competently done and Reynolds brings a genuine charm to the lowest of the low in terms of movies. But even then, he’s poorly implemented, as a lot of the jokes he’s given lack the bizarre pop-culture stylings or utter ridiculousness that make his roles in films such as Deadpool so beloved, and he’s just not funny. In fact, most of the humour in the film is boiled down to kiddie slapstick, random references to the Pokémon lore and – this is accurate – references to masturbation, cocaine and sex in a kid’s movie. Hell, Scooby-Doo was subtler, and that movie pretty much said straight to our faces “these two guys are smoking weed, here’s a couple of scenes demonstrating that beyond reasonable doubt.”

In terms of the rest of the cast, you have Kathryn Newton from Big Little Lies getting the most expansive role in the film, and to be fair, she does the best that she can. Bill Nighy is utterly wasted in a role that is so predictably the twist villain, I guessed it the second he was introduced. Ken Watanabe gets two scenes with one lacking dialogue and the other scene pretending he’s a bit-part instead of an Oscar-nominated treasure, and Chris Geere is so unmemorable I legitimately thought he was Rafe Spall from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Everyone else, I completely forgot who they were.

At least you’d expect action competence, especially considering this is a director of animation with heavy experience in CGI and fight scenes, but Detective Pikachu is moderate to terrible in terms of action. While some scenes are shot with competence and cleverness, others boil down to incomprehensible CGI fights with no real sense of location or direction for the viewer, and rather than excitement, we feel boredom. This could be chalked up to poor storyboarding, but Rob Letterman knows how to direct excellent action, and this is just lazy.

This is how the logic of the action scenes in this movie proceeds.

Well, beyond two good performances, some strong music from Henry Jackman and a decent CGI Pikachu, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu will only really serve those young children who like big explosions and noises, and others need not apply. It’s a movie that tries to be an awesome rollick like The Legend of Zelda or DOOM, but it’s like being smashed in the face with the Pokémon move “Iron Tail” and a malfunctioning Sega Genesis.

With some paraphrasing, eloquently said, Comic Book Guy. Eloquently said.

So what are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below.