Detective Pikachu (Movie review)

Review: I am a massive Pokémon fan so seeing the news of a live-action Pokémon film had me a bit nervous. Anyone who grew up in my sphere of gaming fandom have already seen their fair share of bad video game adaptations. I didn't want Pokémon to be on that list too. After the trailers started dropping, a lot of my fears began to quell. Not all of the Pokémon look great, but the story seemed solid and most of the animation looked incredible. Detective Pikachu is actually a spin-off video game as well as a film. In both, you follow Tim as he finds out his father has gone missing. Tim comes across his dad's partner Pokémon, Pikachu. Much to Tim's shock, he can understand what Pikachu is saying, but no one else can. They use this bond to try to find out what happened to Tim's father.


The video game of Detective Pikachu is real bad. You play as Tim and you do solve a series of rather boring cases that slowly link together and you uncover secrets about what happened to Tim's dad. My biggest gripe with the game is that the story doesn't end. It leaves off so there's room to make another game, but the first game wasn't even fun to begin with. Pokémon is clearly geared towards kids, but I still have fun playing a number of Pokémon games, but I didn't really have fun playing Detective Pikachu. The fact that the story didn't come to a satisfying end made me sad.


On the flip side, I couldn't stop smiling when I watched the movie. Seeing Tim interact with the various Pokémon in this world made my heart soar. The dialogue was also great. Seeing Tim interact with Pikachu was funny, but there were some touching moments too. Tim has to deal with feeling neglected by his dad, and Pikachu had a great relationship with Tim's dad. At the end of the day, they both wanted to solve the mystery of what happened to Tim's dad. There were nice throwbacks for those of us who grew up with the games and original show. If you're at all interested in the story of Detective Pikachu, don't play the video game. Watch the movie and you won't be disappointed.


Great story with a lot of charm.


4 howls