I liked this movie as a whole. I was in elementary school when Pokemon became huge in the states. COllected the cards, played the games, watch the show.
I have always been very skeptical of a live action Pokemon film. I was even more skeptical that they were doing Detective Pikachu. But this was pretty good.
Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu was really good. I thought Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton were pretty good in their roles. I think they could've been replaced by most young actors, but they were still good. I think they're romance worked well. And by well I mean they didn't overstate it beyond an attraction. I was surprised by Justice Smith because I watched the first season of that show The Get Down and he was trash in it.
Seeing the world of Pokemon was cool too. 2/3 of the major action set pieces were pretty good.
I agree with others that the script wasn't all the way there. I get that this is a light movie, but in a detective mystery you want the audience to discover things as the characters do. But the opening of this movie "spoils" a major event. So when the characters become privy to the even later in the movie it kinda just feels pointless. It makes the plot predictable. And this plot was already really predictable just by the way they set up some of the characters.
And I could've let some of it slide if it was a kids movie, but as some of you guys have pointed out, it doesn't know whether its PG or PG13. They should've just fully leaned into PG and made it more of a kids movie.
And the villains plan was really stupid. Really REALLY stupid.
So yeah the script kinda kneecapped this movie. I still like it, but I'm in no rush to catch it again even on streaming.
