Great look, blah story, potential springboard.

I’m not a massive Pokemon fan.

Sure, I still play Pokemon Go, and I’m always going to check out the new mainline games as they come out. But the franchise doesn’t hit the spot like it used to in my childhood.

The thing is, back then, it hit the spot so good. So good that I’ll have, at the very least, a mild interest in Pokemon for life.

(Pokemon Gold/Silver is still the best in the series, don’t @ me)

All of which to say: I knew I had to go watch Detective Pikachu as soon as I saw the trailer.

It was almost like a reflex. I didn’t know anything about the actors involved (aside from Ryan Reynolds and Ken Watanabe), and the trailers revealed close to zilch about the story, but I had to watch it anyway.

Reality is often disappointing

Unfortunately, the trailers represent the movie too accurately.

What do I mean by that? Well, the movie has barely any more story than the trailers. I thought that it was stellar trailer work at first – getting people hyped for the movie without spoiling anything – but it turns out… there’s pretty much nothing to spoil.

The plot was a vehicle to show more Pokemon and to set up jokes, nothing more. In that sense, the movie was disappointingly mediocre.

Coming to life

However, being like the trailers isn’t all bad. The movie delivered on its promise to show us a ‘live-action’ world where Pokemon and humans co-exist. They did it so well that I wish that was the whole movie.

A Pokemon ‘documentary’! Tell me I’m not the only one who thinks that would be a great follow-up.

And maybe that’s all this movie is really good for: setting up the ‘Pokemon Live-Action Universe’ (or whatever you want to call it). The story possibilities are virtually endless.

But they definitely could’ve made a stronger first impression.

At the end of the day, I don’t actually dislike this movie. In fact, I’d still (lightly) encourage people to spend the money to catch it in theaters. But this sentiment is heavily dependent on a lifetime of liking Pokemon, and the goodwill that the franchise has built up over time with me.

Still, as someone who is almost always story-first in my media consumption preferences, even all the good vibes and nostalgia in the world couldn’t save this movie from being a letdown for me.

Seeing Pokemon ‘in real life’ was really cool – let’s hope they do something better with it next time.