Pikapool was glorious fun! · 1:50am May 20th, 2019
But despite being not only the best game/anime movie ever made, and even a stand-alone good movie, it's on par to barely make any money.
So, get my minor criticisms out of the way first: yes, the story was a bit predictable. And the younger actors were rather flat, but far from the worst I've seen. They were both playing characters who were awkward, and they did at least manage to nail that, if unintentionally!
I am hard-pressed to find a truly glaring plothole, aside from one minor quibble about voice recognition (if you see it, you may pick up my meaning there). Some things I thought were going to be plot holes turned out to be essential plot developments, including a rather clever little setup with one minor point in an earlier scene.
I'd say all in all this movie has story elements of both "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Zootopia", and they work well. It's a briskly-paced movie that knows when to slow down just a tad to let the emotions play a bit and give the audience a break from rushing around.
And the visuals... fantastic. Virtually flawless. My hyper-critical brain was fooled quite a few times into believing what I was seeing. I had to wonder at some points if the Pokemon in several places were actually practical effects instead of CGI, they were that good. So much detail in both how the Pokemon looked and behaved, and how their powers worked was paid close attention to. And this coming from someone who was VERY VERY MUCH OVER POKEMON... like, 18 or so years over it. This movie got me, the jaded, tooth-grating super troll critic... actually interested in Pokemon.
So, here it is, people! The video game/anime movie you've wanted for so long and it's pretty darn good. My brother, friend, and aunt loved it... and they tend to be almost as critical as I am with movies and TV shows.
So.... why isn't it making a mint at the box office? I'm very perplexed. The message the studios are going to get from this is: don't listen to the people who want quality. They won't show up for it. Just shovel out shit for the masses of morons to shove in their face and empty heads.
On that note, I suspect "Aladdin" and "The Lion King" will rake in those nostalgia bucks despite being inferior cash-grabs. Disney keeps raping everyone, and everyone keeps begging, "Please, Mickey, harder!"
Everyone loves that mouse wiener, I tells ye.
Seriously though, this post is high praise for that movie - I personally would blame Mickey Mouse being more of a established brand than Pikapool, and that nostalgia phenomenon is a bitch to counter.
Oh, and people love mediocrity that appeals to them. Thus, the long life of Walt Disney and other corporations.
5061295
Let's remember that Disney once represented quality
But as we all know Disney loved the National Socialist party, Imperialism, and fascism. Obviously
... I don't see why they don't pay this guy. People would pay money for this
5061523 Nah, Walt was a decent guy. I got to meet a couple people who knew him personally, including Floyd Norman.
It was the evil masterminds who came after him that began to turn Disney Co. into a world-domination engine!
5061295 The opening scene in the movie is spectacularly realistic. At first, you don't know you're looking at Pokémon as the view glides over the rural countryside. They look like real little animals scampering and soaring... only after a few moments when the lens gets close enough to see the clearly non-real-world-animal parts do you realize, "Holy crap, those are the Pokémon! This is amazing!"
That's when effects are at their best: when you can no longer tell what's real and what's an effect.
I was paying close attention to details, and the various sophisticated visual and film camera tricks employed serve to tremendously enhance immersion. There are many places where the filmmakers would be tempted to show off their designs... but they permit realistic camera blurs of background Pokémon and out-of-focus movement, and it really creates the sensation that these animated characters are there in reality.
Keep in mind again, this is coming from me; a guy who was done with Pokémon after the very first season of the original anime bored the heck out of me and the first movie (when I finally saw it) introducing Mew 2 had a cheesy emotional moment at the climax which had me face-palming in frustration. That was 1999. For 20 years, I've been sick of even hearing about Pokémon. And then this movie brought me right back to the initial spark of interest when the franchise originally burst onto the scene.
I'd say it's akin to the sensation I felt after being so furious with the cheesy Batman movies and wishing the franchise would just die already... to then seeing "The Dark Knight".
5062711
Hearing this, I am tempted to go to the cinema if the pocket allows it next month to watch it - as I was also disenchanted with the 'toon from the first season.
If that fails, I'll see if they sell the DVD later on.:raritywink
PS: From the cheesy films of Batman they certainly changed lanes with Batman: The Animated Series of the nineties, which was a game-breaker in terms of quality, storytelling and animation techniques.
I am more partial to 'toons than live-action films, though - so I'm biased in that regard.
5062717 The Batman animated series came out shortly after the Burton Batman films and was even better written. It was as the animated series was drawing to a close that the films grew steadily worse and worse... until that fateful day..
That was pretty much my reaction to it as well.
5062719
Ahhh... Bat-nipples. How could I forget?
Huh? How bad could it be?
<one watching later>
Okay... doesn't the message sort of ring hollow coming from a franchise that glorifies the premise of breeding and raising tesla hamsters for the sole purpose of cock fighting?
5064218 It's almost like an unintentional satire when franchises seem deliriously unaware of what they are.
International markets are at least partially to blame for the tag and penultimate paragraph. You see, Michael Bay is popular in China because the things he does well (the actual directing and cinematography) translate better across languages and cultures than the things he does poorly (picking scripts worth their weight in Haribo sugar-free gummi bears) (and if you think that's a damning indictment, I'd like to point out that the scripts are probably stored electronically)
5082716 And "Aladdin" has indeed made over $850 million worldwide, despite being a clearly inferior cash-grab that Disney couldn't even pay critics enough to pretend to like. God dammit, people.
5083075
I'd like to offer a defense of the specific choice of Genie, because someone has to say it: Robin Williams' brilliance in that role was because he improvised basically all of it, so picking a rapper-turned-actor who's popular for both was the best choice short of not making the movie in the first place. And of course you just gave 850 million reasons why the latter wasn't a defensible option to make. Actually, if it came out why they didn't make the movie they'd have lost a lot more than that in potential investors, because investors don't like corporations with moral standards (see: Nintendo dropping for stating they would give employees reasonable working hours)
(Note: while nominally on your side, I'm also discussing what is, which sadly goes against what ought to be)
5083094 We've seen plenty of mediocre-to-god-awful movies make fortunes.
I don't bash the creators. I bash the audiences with no standards.
For instance, I applaud Michael Bay's sentiments that he knows he's making crap, but he doesn't care because he's rolling in money from it. I respect that sort of blunt honesty.