Poké­mon Detec­tive Pikachu

There are many pop cul­ture curios we asso­ciate with the 1990s, from jel­ly shoes and Pogs to the mark of a mid­dle-class child­hood, the Beanie Babies Retire­ment Plan. None, how­ev­er, have found stay­ing pow­er like Poké­mon, found­ed by Satoshi Tajiri for Nin­ten­do back in 1995. In the two decades since, ​‘Pock­et Mon­sters’ have sparked glob­al hys­te­ria, span­ning media from trad­ing cards and video games to ani­mé, movies, and even cuisine.

Giv­en there have been 22 Poké­mon films pro­duced to date, and con­sid­er­ing Hollywood’s recent fas­ci­na­tion with turn­ing gam­ing apps into yawn­ing tie-in films (The Angry Birds Movie, The Emo­ji Movie) it’s sur­pris­ing it’s tak­en this long for a stu­dio to take a crack at the fran­chise. Nev­er­the­less, fol­low­ing a glut of West­ern adap­ta­tions of Japan­ese ani­mes includ­ing Ghost in the Shell (bad), Death Note (very bad) and Ali­ta: Bat­tle Angel (not as bad as the first two), we now have the film that nobody knew they want­ed: a detec­tive noir star­ring Ryan Reynolds as a caf­feine-addict­ed Pikachu. What a world, eh?

Direct­ed by Rob Let­ter­man of Shark Tale and Goose­bumps fame, Poké­mon Detec­tive Pikachu is based on the 2016 video game of the same name, which sees the adorable epony­mous hero (voice and facial mo-cap pro­vid­ed by Ryan Reynolds) team up with 21-year-old Tim Good­man (a very game Jus­tice Smith) to solve the mys­tery of Tim’s father Harry’s dis­ap­pear­ance. Their escapades takes place in the futur­is­tic Ryme City, which for audi­ences famil­iar with Lon­don might be jar­ring – the Gherkin takes pride of place in sev­er­al estab­lish­ing shots, and you can quite clear­ly see red Lon­don bus­es zip­ping around Old Street while young Tim makes his way across town.

It’s off-putting in a very spe­cif­ic way, giv­en that sig­nage seem­ing­ly places the city some­where in Japan, though the char­ac­ters are large­ly a mix of Amer­i­can and British, with the excep­tion of Ken Watanabe’s Detec­tive Yoshi­da, who doesn’t have much to do beyond look­ing po-faced when­ev­er Tim press­es the sub­ject of his dad’s where­abouts. Arguably the strangest cast­ing choice is Rita Ora as a sci­en­tist who exists pure­ly to pro­vide exposition.

Still, Reynolds feels like a sol­id choice as Pikachu, and for the most part he man­ages to avoid doing Dead­pool 4 Kidz. There’s also absolute­ly no deny­ing that Pikachu (com­plete with tiny deer­stalk­er) is very, very cute. Just look at the fur ren­der­ing! Those big brown eyes! To wit, Reynolds has great chem­istry with Smith, who pro­vides a per­fect lev­el-head­ed foil. It’s no small achieve­ment to be con­vinc­ing when your co-star is a CGI elec­tric mouse, and Smith sells the sto­ry heart and soul, which makes it much eas­i­er to for­give the film’s pac­ing issues and ulti­mate silliness.

When it comes to the Poké­mon, Pikachu is the unequiv­o­cal star of the show. For fans of the orig­i­nal series there are some fun throw­backs to Poké­mon: The First Movie, but a lot of the Poké­mon fea­tured are from more recent years, and may lack famil­iar­i­ty for wider audi­ences. It’s hard to real­ly be inter­est­ed in these minor char­ac­ters giv­en how lit­tle we get to see; it feels like the world of Poké­mon isn’t explored as well as it could be, as the film is so des­per­ate to fol­low one nar­row nar­ra­tive thread.

But Detec­tive Pikachu – unlike afore­men­tioned recent cyn­i­cal cor­po­rate cash-ins – is a hope­less­ly earnest film. It has a few gen­uine­ly charm­ing tricks up its sleeve, and for those look­ing for a nos­tal­gia trip, it’s a pleas­ing lit­tle stroll down mem­o­ry lane. Its intri­ca­cies might be lost on very young view­ers (get ready to explain a joke about birth canals, mum and dad!) but it’s the sort of film that feels so glee­ful­ly amazed it’s allowed to exist – a warm ton­ic for these increas­ing­ly try­ing times. To live in a world where a film about a Pikachu in a deer­stalk­er (shot on actu­al film, no less!) exists is to believe in cin­e­ma again.