Ah the nostalgia, heading over the bridge to the cinema yesterday afternoon all I could think was "I haven't done this in a long time" since pokemon 3 shockingly. Walking through the gate getting handed my pikachu card i was all giddy and excited, and then when i walked into the screen an old friend was sat on the row behind, and my oldest friend rocked up in the seat next to me, old habits die hard it seems.
Going in all I knew was it was a retelling of the beginning of the anime, I was expecting some fleshing out of the start of Ash's adventure, some slight retconning of plot details, and frankly i was expecting marshadow to somehow slip ash a z crystal for that crazyass thunderbolt that takes out a million spearow.... And I was so, so wrong.
So I'm pretty much counting it now that pokemon has it's own multiverse, this film showed exactly how ash would have fared should he not get constantly attacked by team rocket, whose presence in the film was not unwelcome for once. This ash is slightly more annoying than the regular ash, and apparently even worse at catching pokemon. The decision to use both Caterpie and Charmander to show Ash's progression as a trainer was uneven at best, we got a tiny bit of storyline with caterpie, and despite there still being no pink butterfree explanation it got to do it's emotional goodbye. Charmander on the other hand, they pretty much recycled charmander and tepig's storylines, Cross did make a better douchey trainer than Damian from the original, but he still felt too forced.
There was no real way to tell the passage of time in the film, making both of charmander's evolutions feel incredibly cheap, but also making it even stranger that Ash the wannabe pokemon master didn't actually have any pokemon. Then again, I was also against the idea of a catching montage, and feel we're slightly better off without it, however, and this goes back to the time point, when ash is against ho oh, or even rushing off to face entei, it literally feels like he's standing there with a level 5 pikachu, and you kinda want ho oh to just eat him.... or is that just me?
Anyone else annoyed by the graveler using energy ball? I mean, marshadow is freaking adorable, i just wanted it to stay in control of all the pokemon, strangling a charizard with an arbok is just about the smartest thing any antagonist has done in all of pokemon, almost like every kaiju film ever, i was rooting for marshadow straight away.
Ok, here's my biggest criticism, the film was too emotional! I admit it, my emotions fly around off the handles a lot, and i spent too much of this film literally drying my eyes, every other scene was either tears of joy or sadness, it literally pulled at every heart string it could... And it worked too well! When Ash died after pikachu saying 'I just want to be with you all the time' that was it for a little girl in the audience, she started wailing, her dad had to pick her up and leave because she was so loud, and even though everyone else in the audience knew it wasn't permanent, there was no way to console this little girl, she never even saw him come back to life. Although, not going to lie, actually thought for a moment it would be the most depressing pokemon film of all time and end with pikachu in Ash's cap, that's how powerful this film is, it made me doubt they would make a friggin kids film have a happy ending.
I had a double agenda seeing this film, it being a reboot/alternate universe gave me a great excuse to initiate my girlfriend into the world of pokemon, as a life-long non-fan she literally knew nothing about pokemon until a few months ago (thought they were robots, how cute, right?) so i booked 2 tickets expecting her to say no and have to find someone else to go with, and lo and behold she agreed to go. So I got a great unique perspective from her which was largely that as a non-fan the film made a lot of sense, and that pikachu may be a mouse but it acts exactly like our cat. Also on the plus side, i now have 2 codes for the i choose you cap pikachu, it's just a shame the qr code doesn't also get you the promo card on tgc online.
Overall I will say this, I didn't hate this film, but I kinda don't think even it knew what it wanted to be, an origin, a coming of age, or a showdown, it tries to be a bit of all, but mostly, it's just an emotional rollercoaster with a weird version of Ash, if you watch it, have the kleenex ready
Going in all I knew was it was a retelling of the beginning of the anime, I was expecting some fleshing out of the start of Ash's adventure, some slight retconning of plot details, and frankly i was expecting marshadow to somehow slip ash a z crystal for that crazyass thunderbolt that takes out a million spearow.... And I was so, so wrong.
So I'm pretty much counting it now that pokemon has it's own multiverse, this film showed exactly how ash would have fared should he not get constantly attacked by team rocket, whose presence in the film was not unwelcome for once. This ash is slightly more annoying than the regular ash, and apparently even worse at catching pokemon. The decision to use both Caterpie and Charmander to show Ash's progression as a trainer was uneven at best, we got a tiny bit of storyline with caterpie, and despite there still being no pink butterfree explanation it got to do it's emotional goodbye. Charmander on the other hand, they pretty much recycled charmander and tepig's storylines, Cross did make a better douchey trainer than Damian from the original, but he still felt too forced.
There was no real way to tell the passage of time in the film, making both of charmander's evolutions feel incredibly cheap, but also making it even stranger that Ash the wannabe pokemon master didn't actually have any pokemon. Then again, I was also against the idea of a catching montage, and feel we're slightly better off without it, however, and this goes back to the time point, when ash is against ho oh, or even rushing off to face entei, it literally feels like he's standing there with a level 5 pikachu, and you kinda want ho oh to just eat him.... or is that just me?
Anyone else annoyed by the graveler using energy ball? I mean, marshadow is freaking adorable, i just wanted it to stay in control of all the pokemon, strangling a charizard with an arbok is just about the smartest thing any antagonist has done in all of pokemon, almost like every kaiju film ever, i was rooting for marshadow straight away.
Ok, here's my biggest criticism, the film was too emotional! I admit it, my emotions fly around off the handles a lot, and i spent too much of this film literally drying my eyes, every other scene was either tears of joy or sadness, it literally pulled at every heart string it could... And it worked too well! When Ash died after pikachu saying 'I just want to be with you all the time' that was it for a little girl in the audience, she started wailing, her dad had to pick her up and leave because she was so loud, and even though everyone else in the audience knew it wasn't permanent, there was no way to console this little girl, she never even saw him come back to life. Although, not going to lie, actually thought for a moment it would be the most depressing pokemon film of all time and end with pikachu in Ash's cap, that's how powerful this film is, it made me doubt they would make a friggin kids film have a happy ending.
I had a double agenda seeing this film, it being a reboot/alternate universe gave me a great excuse to initiate my girlfriend into the world of pokemon, as a life-long non-fan she literally knew nothing about pokemon until a few months ago (thought they were robots, how cute, right?) so i booked 2 tickets expecting her to say no and have to find someone else to go with, and lo and behold she agreed to go. So I got a great unique perspective from her which was largely that as a non-fan the film made a lot of sense, and that pikachu may be a mouse but it acts exactly like our cat. Also on the plus side, i now have 2 codes for the i choose you cap pikachu, it's just a shame the qr code doesn't also get you the promo card on tgc online.
Overall I will say this, I didn't hate this film, but I kinda don't think even it knew what it wanted to be, an origin, a coming of age, or a showdown, it tries to be a bit of all, but mostly, it's just an emotional rollercoaster with a weird version of Ash, if you watch it, have the kleenex ready