Board 8 > Finally saw Detective Pikachu last night (one relatively vague/minor spoiler)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I gotta say I'm rather surprised that this got such good reviews. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it for what it was. It was cute, the CGI was good, the action sequences were fun, there were some funny moments, they really took advantage of the whole "Pokemon in the real world" thing and showed how people and Pokemon interact in all kinds of ways pretty well, and Ryan Reynolds was perfect as Pikachu (I gotta say when I first heard about this casting choice I kinda scratched my head but he really nailed it). But something about it just had this aura of "fan film" written all over it. A really, really well-made fan film, but other than the action sequences and Ryan Reynolds, you could probably tell me that this was from Youtube and the only thing I would be even a little bit skeptical of is the CGI Pokemon, and even then I could probably buy that they got someone really good to help them out with it. The performances of the two leads in particular really felt "fan film"-ish, although the guy got better as the film went on.

Oh, and the Ditto part was hilarious, but nightmare fuel.
---

yeah I thought it was pretty bad. needed more actual pokemon battling instead of the weird roger rabbit feel it was going for.

I happened to love it, because it was so well-made and was dedicated to longtime fans. It was a lot of fun and that's what's important, right?
---

colliding posted...

yeah I thought it was pretty bad. needed more actual pokemon battling instead of the weird roger rabbit feel it was going for.

True, but I did kinda enjoy how battling was actually outlawed and took place as an underground thing.
---

Underleveled posted...

I gotta say I'm rather surprised that this got such good reviews.

68% positive isn't really that good, and having seen it recently myself, I can't say I'm surprised that's where it is. Here's the brief review I previously posted in scarlet's Movie and Box Office Topic:

On the one hand, I felt it achieved a strong balance of dazzling visuals anchored by an effective plot arc, which wrapped up with an unexpected and surprisingly touching twist. On the other hand, its action and humor were both rather weak, hampered by limp writing. I'd still say it's a good movie overall, but given that those latter aspects were what it was sold on, I'm not surprised about its underwhelming box office results.
---

colliding posted...

yeah I thought it was pretty bad. needed more actual pokemon battling instead of the weird roger rabbit feel it was going for.

What would more battling actually accomplish? Seems like just more padding to a movie that needed to be cleaned up a bit in other areas. I mean the movie is basely loosed on an adventure game where you talk to people (and pokemon) to solve mysteries.

I would also not be surprised if Nintendo had some stipulations on what they could do with the pokemon and that it made it difficult to have a lot of good battles.
---

... The OP description seems to match the reviews ratings? I'm confused, it wasn't slaying the critics or anything.

Ditto twist still the best thing, and Reynolds all I need.
---

Grimlyn posted...

... The OP description seems to match the reviews ratings? I'm confused, it wasn't slaying the critics or anything.

Basically I'm surprised that the critics shared my opinion. I thought it seemed like something that would typically get trashed, even though I enjoyed it.
---