[00:00] I get asked on a fairly regular basis why I don't spend more time talking about movies that I like, so how about we spend some time talking about a movie that I am excited for, Detective Pikachu. Now, even though I am excited for Detective Pikachu, I do want to try to make this an objective review,
[00:14] so here's a short list of criteria that I've come up with to grade the movie on. First, laugh. Now, I feel like the value of having at least a couple good jokes in a movie starring Ryan Reynolds is pretty self-evident, so I'm not going to expand on this anymore.
[00:27] Second, adventure. Now, I'm not expecting a movie called Detect Pikachu to be a, like, deep dive into the darkest recesses of the human psyche, but I am hoping that there's, you know, at least a fun adventure with things that happen that are exciting to look at.
[00:44] Third, we're going to be rating this based on heartfelt moments. Now, while Pokemon as a franchise can get some flack for being overly sentimental, in an era of growing media cynicism, we should probably be at least just a little bit more open to sincerity.
[00:57] And fourth, Haunter. Again, like jokes, I feel the value of Haunter is self-evident, so I will not be expanding on this any further. Now, because this is an objective rating system, we give each a score out of five and then apply a weighting,
[01:09] giving us a sum out of 100. Can you tell that I've worked in curriculum development before? This rubric right here? Flawless. Bulletproof. Academic oversight would have no notes and zero revisions.
[01:21] But anyway, that's the system that we're going to be using, so now I just need to go see Detective Pikachu. All right, so the first question that's going to be on everybody's minds,
[01:38] how much did they pander to the pervert? And the answer is very little. I didn't see a single gardevoir. But with that out of the way, let's get to the actual numbers. Okay, so first up, was it funny?
[01:51] Yeah, actually, this was a pretty funny movie. I got a few good chuckles out of me, and I was really aiming to just go ham on that toy mouse.
[02:10] So yeah, the movie was decently funny. It got a few good laughs out of me. I'm glad we saw it in a fairly full theater with a diverse crowd of ages, because it really kind of helped contextualize a lot of stuff.
[02:26] So there was a few jokes that, like, for me didn't work, but they played, like, really well with the kids. So, you know, it's broad. It's going to hit kind of all age ranges. There's probably going to be a joke in there that you're going to find,
[02:41] at least a little bit funny. I mean, unless you're going in to just be a hater. and I mean yeah a lot of it cheesy but I mean embrace it Embrace the cheese So for this I actually going to give it a five because it fulfilled kind of all the requirements
[03:05] It had a lot of jokes. It was consistently funny throughout. It wasn't just like, okay, well, there were like two funny scenes. It was fairly funny. It was consistently funny throughout, and it was funny in a way that would appeal to a wide group, wide audience.
[03:20] And the jokes aren't just the purview of Ryan Reynolds. The entire cast has really good comedic chemistry, and everybody gets, you know, at least one solid line. Next up, adventure.
[03:32] So for this one, I'm actually going to give it a 3 out of 5. Because while you're going in expecting the adventure itself, the story and the plot, it's going to be fairly broad and easy to understand, so that, like, a really young audience is going to be able to keep up and follow along.
[03:47] The whole thing kind of just gets a little, I don't know, weird and messy at the end, and, you know, the landing. The landing is really important to stick.
[03:59] So it's really, it's good, it carries you along at a good pace, it keeps moving, it's fun, it's interesting, and then it just kind of gets a little, you know, it's not bad,
[04:11] but landing, the ending is very important, and since we're being very objective here and we're dealing with numbers and math and we're establishing an objective numerical value,
[04:27] I'm going to have to go with a 3 out of 5. To kind of demonstrate why I'm cutting back on the adventure score a little bit, I would point to there's a big action set piece,
[04:40] kind of in the late middle of the movie, like right before the climax, where the landscape is being torn up and all of this stuff is going on, and it's chaos, and then it just kind of, like, ends and literally undoes itself.
[04:59] And there are consequences, and it does sort of move things forward, but it's a really, really, really big landscape-altering set piece
[05:13] that just then goes away. So it's exciting, but it doesn't build on anything.
[05:25] So that's why we're shaving a bit off that adventure score. Heartfelt moments, aka feels. This one, I'm going to say like four, solid four. You could probably, I mean, if you argued with me enough,
[05:37] maybe creep that up to a five as well, but I'm going to go with a four. There are several scenes that manage to activate this want this need this emotional response and they done sincerely They not played as a joke You know opening up to others is treated as good and valuable and it a thing
[06:05] that the characters need to learn to do and they all grow a little bit and they are a little more emotionally mature by the end of the movie and I'd say maybe the point comes out
[06:19] because it's a little it falls a little too heavily on a few cliches. Like, it's a lot about, you know, it's dead mom and daddy issues. And, you know, it's a classic formula, I guess,
[06:34] but it's also an overused formula. So maybe we'll shave off a little bit for that. And I gotta say, feels-wise, the scene from the trailer where, like, the little herd of Bulbasaur comes out
[06:47] and they're all just, like, tumbling along and they're making these chirping noises Yeah, it's a pretty damn cute movie. Last, Haunter.
[07:02] There are zero Haunters in this movie. But there's a lot of Gengar. And so for Haunter, I'm going to go with a 1 out of 5.
[07:15] Now, if there would be both a Gengar and a Gastly, I'd maybe go up to 2. Now, it's not a 0. Zero would be absolutely nothing, but the void left by Haunter is felt palpably through the entire movie.
[07:36] Like, just down to its fiber, you sense the absence of Haunter. And so, unfortunately, one out of five. All right, so if we add all this up, objectively, mathematically speaking,
[07:52] Pokemon Detective Pikachu gets a 26 out of 100. I did enjoy this movie. I had a really good time beginning to end, but unfortunately, numbers just don't lie.
[08:05] This means that mathematically, Detective Pikachu is actually one of the worst movies I've ever talked about on my channel. So one of the remaining outstanding questions is, does Detective Pikachu represent a changing of the wind for video game movies?
[08:19] So Detective Pikachu, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, is based on a spin-off game from the Pokemon series called Detective Pikachu. Now, I want to say yes, but no, but maybe, but no.
[08:37] Pokemon ends up actually being in a little bit of a different category from most of what we would categorize as video game movies, because Pokemon itself was developed by the Pokemon Company from the get-go as a multimedia franchise.
[08:53] It was never really intended to be just a video game or just a card game or just an anime or just a manga or you know it was always going to be all of these things
[09:06] So it was designed from the ground up with that in mind. And there's a very, like, distinct hierarchy within the company about, like, the sort of supremacy of different sources. and there's a standard, like, operating bible that they all work from in order to develop, like, the look and feel and sound,
[09:25] and they have voice actors who have been working with specific characters and, like, Pokemon voices of voices by Pikachu, the animal voice, the Pokemon voice of Pikachu has been the same for 20 years now.
[09:43] you know, there's a control there in how all of it's managed, whereas the vast majority of video game movies that I tend to talk about on the channel
[09:59] are video games first that are then being turned into a movie either by a video game company that has no experience making movies
[10:13] or by a filmmaking company that has no experience with video games. So the particular alchemy that goes into a video game movie
[10:29] to produce something like The Legend of Charlie or Super Mario Brothers or Street Fighter. It doesn't exist within Pokemon, and only within Pokemon,
[10:43] just because of the way that the franchise is structured. And if you think about it, like, Pokemon already has, like, a dozen movies under its belt as a franchise. And yes, those are all the animated movies, which are an extension of the television show,
[10:59] But that's not nothing. So while the text-to-speech shoot is itself a little bit more of a direct adaptation in that, like, there's a specific spin-off game that is being adapted name and premise into this movie,
[11:15] it still exists within the context of the Pokemon style guide, the Pokemon hierarchy, the central control of the Pokemon company.
[11:29] But seriously, I can't stress it enough. This movie is super cute. Like, even the weird, creepy, like, deliberately creepy, unsaddling Pokemon are still cute.
[11:42] I forgot to record a conclusion last night, so I'll just say, like, I actually really enjoyed this movie. I had a good time. It was a lot of laughs. It was a lot of fun. It was touching. It was, you know, it was good.
[11:54] It's a good movie. But there's no Haunter.