Pokémon Detective Pikachu ideally should work only for those who know their Charmanders from their Bulbasaurs. Or Jigglypuffs from Ludicolos. They are animals of alternate reality who are trained by humans to fight each other.
But this film actually works because it is not a simply straight-up bland fan service.
For the uninitiated, Pokémon (originated in Japan) is one of the most successful franchises of pop culture history that built an alternate cosmos riding on obsessive fans who couldn’t get enough of the weird animals. After minting billions, this is the first time the universe has been rendered in live-action madness.
The Pokémon creatures, drawn wonderfully in 2D animation earlier, pop up in this film as believable wonders, and this has been possible only because computer wizardry has magnified the cinematic imagination million-fold. And to add sass to the sauce, Ryan Reynolds lends his snarky voice for Pikachu – the most adorable, and quite possibly the fiercest of them all.
The action is set in Ryme City, a utopian place where humans and Pokémons reside as equals, letting go off the trainer-pet equation. Tim Goodman (played by Justice Smith), a 21-year-old former Pokémon trainer arrives at the metropolis to find closure for his father’s sudden death, and comes in contact with Pikachu.
Director Rob Letterman’s film is less of a game theory, and more of a neo-noir scheme. Pikachu it turns out, has amnesia, and doesn’t remember anything. Tim’s father died in a car accident, but Pikachu’s hunch says he is not dead.
Together, they become an unlikely duo of buddy comedies who turn up their sleuthing skills to unearth the mystery. When they meet a cub reporter in Lucy Stevens (played by Kathryn Newton who is tired of making listicles) and her Pokémon Psyduck, romantic sparks fly between the humans, and an exhausted rapport builds between the pet-partners. They travel from underground fighting arenas to secret science labs to a final climactic battle that puts the entire planet at stake.
It’s a very busy story, and owes a lot to Robert Zemeckis’ 1988 classic, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The script carefully leaves the gaming device for a plotty narrative. The mystery design is not intricate enough to sustain the interest of adults, but for a film intended for kids, it does have enough to make it float.
The pleasure of course, is to witness the fictional creatures come alive in photorealistic detail, and some of the sequences like the one involving Mr Mime are an absolute delight. Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool-esque snappy irreverence watered down for the young ones is a shrewd ploy that can initiate adults into the Pikachu love as well.
That Pikachu made it to the big screen as a buddy comedy should be a thing of joy for fans, considering how earnestly the sheer absurdity of the concept gets treated. But for someone who has been deeply entranced by the world in the days of yore like yours truly, there was a sense of wanting something more. After all, Pikachu barely utters ‘Pika Pika’. Perhaps this is a winning move on the studio’s part, since they now have me waiting eagerly for the next installment in the hope that I will get to hear the magic gibberish of Pikachu.
(The writer is a journalist, a screenwriter, and a content developer who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. He tweets @RanjibMazumder)
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