VGFlicks: Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

The investigation is on

The joke in the French version: "Speak louder, there's
pillows in my ears!"

Having nowhere else to go, Tim Goodman and Pikachu spend the night at Harry’s apartment. Pikachu, being a detective, grills Tim about the child room filled with Pokémon memorabilia in the apartment, and Tim admits that he used to like Pokémon and wanted to be a Trainer, but that ended when his mom died and his dad moved to the city. The next day, Tim wakes up to a complete mess of papers scattered in the living room, left by an excitable mouse looking for clues.

"Don't touch my stuff! I'm about to solve the Pepe Silvia
mystery!"

With the added realism, Ditto looks even more like a
chewed bubblegum than it normally does.

The only thing he found was the vial of purple smoke, labeled R. Tim thinks Lucy, the girl he met the previous day and who seems to know more about the case, could help, so the two head to the CNM offices. They arrive on Roger Clifford and his father Howard shooting a promo for the upcoming Poké-parade. All smiles while the cameras roll, yet insulting each other (with Roger specifically calling out his father’s god complex) when they’re not filmed. Lucy tries to approach Roger Clifford about the story she’s found, but he turns her down brutally due to her lack of evidence and sources.

She's into him and he doesn't notice. Damn, it hurts.

When she meets Tim and Pikachu, she takes them to her office. The records room? The broom closet would have been less cramped. Turns out, Lucy found multiple vials of that stuff, whatever it is; and she knows Harry had an informant by the docks. She subtly offers to go investigate with him at night... but he’s a dummy and miserably fails to understand her hints. Man, that’s painful to watch.

Therefore, Tim and Pikachu go alone, though this does give them time to chat. This is when we learn that Pokémon don’t really understand human speech (normally), but they do understand emotions. That’s gonna come up, right? The earlier comment that Pikachu can speak to Pokémon could have been useful, but he never really uses that skill to further the investigation...

I love that the franchise has adopted this scene and gives
other Mr. Mime the "sit and drink" routine when idle. Try
it in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. It's hilarious.

Oh! Oh! Here comes the best scene in the film. They encounter the informant, who is a Mr. Mime. It recognizes Pikachu and tries to flee, but it's bound to its own silliness and its attempt fails. It gets grilled by our duo, good cop/bad cop-style, which fails because Mr. Mime is uncooperative and has its invisible walls to further mock them. Tim finally gets some answers by playing the Pokémon’s mime games, then pretending he’s dousing the clown in gasoline and threatening it with a match. Straight-up Looney Tunes stuff. Surprisingly, that works, and the Mister mimes what the duo wants to hear: The source of the purple smoke is at the Roundhouse. Then Tim drops the “match”. The sadist side of me wishes we’d seen the outcome of that.

If there are Looney Tunes-like cartoons in the Pokémon
universe, I bet Mr. Mime are a part of it. That was a
straight-up Looney Tunes routine. Honestly, I am glad the
studio fought to keep that scene in the film, it was worth it.

Mr. Mime are creepy by design, this one is extra creepy due to the added layer of realism. In all fairness, most Pokémon in the movie kind of have the same flaw: All of them had to be made more realistic for the sake of a live-action movie. That means visible fur (or hair), feathers, scales, skin, all to an extent beyond anything done by the franchise before. Most Pokémon fans from my generation likely googled “Realistic Pokémon” at least once and got supremely creeped out by what they found. Among the concept artists for the film, you can count RJ Palmer, whose DeviantArt gallery contains a collection of Pokémon reimagined as realistic creatures, and most are every bit as unsettling as you can imagine. However, The Pokémon Company international had one mandate: All Pokémon in the movie must still be cute.

She's never seen a Bruxish.

Lucy has also never seen a Gengar in their universe, it seems.

...well, mission semi-accomplished, as your mileage might vary for several designs. There are species who look even cuter with the extra fluff, like Pikachu, of course, but also Pancham or Audino. However, some cartoony things don’t translate well to realistic...uh...ness. Aside from Mr. Mime, other Pokémon made extra creepy include Loudred and Gengar; those faces are gonna be in my nightmares. Others looked fine with less detail, not so much now; that goes for every species that lacks a nose. Jigglypuff, Snorlax, Aipom are big offenders. Machamp looks more plastic than an action figure. I already don’t like Lickitung, so the realistic one gets a big “Thanks, I hate it!” On the upside, Mewtwo is a semi-godly hairless sphynx cat, but it looks like it floated right out of Pokémon: The First Movie and onto the set of Detective Pikachu, so I can’t complain.

Roundhouse

Remember when I said Pokémon battles were illegal in Ryme City? Sure enough, if it’s illegal, then there’s a seedy place that does it away from the eyes of the law, and the Roundhouse is one such place. Pokémon Battles aren't the focus of the plot and we can tell; it almost feels more impressive to watch the few times one is happening.

Charizard does look very impressive with extra detail.
Scales, scales all over.

Tim and Pikachu arrive while a match is going on between a Blastoise and a Gengar. Missed opportunity to make it a Nidorino against a Gengar, to be honest. The Roundhouse’s owner, Sebastian (Omar Chaparro), a burly bearded shirtless dude in a furred coat, recognizes the Pikachu on Tim’s shoulder. Turns out, the last time this Pikachu (and his original owner) showed up there, the rodent scratched his coat and left a nasty scar on the face of his partner Pokémon, a Charizard. The guy demands a rematch, while Pikachu keeps snarking at both the guy and his fire-breathing dragon.

"They try to talk to me all the time but all they hear is Pika
Pika. They pat me or kiss me or stick a finger in me..."
Uh... Yuck?

Hey, look, Ryan Reynolds is an immensely funny guy, I’m never gonna take that away from him. And he’s got a huge talent for improvisational humor. It’s to the point where he contributed so much to his lines in the first two Deadpool movies that he got official co-writing credit on the second one. For Pokémon Detective Pikachu, apparently he just threw jokes in line with every possible content rating, then let whoever in charge of script pick the most appropriate ones. Some promotional stories imply that if there had been a desire to make it, an R-rated cut of this film could have been possible. Hey, you can take the man out of the Deadpool and into a Pikachu, but you can’t take the Deadpool out of the man. It’s like they handed the script to Wade Wilson rather than to Ryan Reynolds.

That’s not a dig at the actor, but improv-based scripting can be very hit-and-miss and few master it. As an example, I didn’t hate the 2016 Ghostbusters movie (though it’s super flawed), but it was easy to tell that loads of jokes in the film were ad-libbed and came out not as strong as scripted ones could have been. The only other actor I can think of who could come up with jokes on the fly for every age rating was Robin Williams. Mrs. Doubtfire is another example of a movie where the studio allegedly could have made a version for every American content age rating, from G to R, that’s how insanely talented the man was when it comes to humor.

"Maybe [a Poké-neurologist] can weigh in on the long-term
psychological effect of being strapped into a BABY SEAT...
Next to a bomb!" Scripted? Ad-libbed? One of the few
moments where I couldn't tell.

As for Reynolds’ career since the first Deadpool, it seems to be relying a lot on his similar innate ability for improvisational comedy. He can go all-out when wearing the red spandex of the Merc with a Mouth, but several of his other roles since have felt like the different degrees of 'Pool: Detective Pikachu of course, but his characters in Free Guy and Hobbs & Shaw are additional examples. It speaks volumes that fans got worried when it was reported that Reynolds wouldn’t be allowed to ad-lib on the set of Deadpool 3 (now known as Deadpool & Wolverine) due to his credit as writer and the then-ongoing Writers’ Strike. Improvisation can be a double-edged sword in other ways: When someone relies on it too much and feels the need, within a role, to comment on everything with a quip (like Pikachu frequently does here), or when similar jokes keep coming back across roles. This is starting to show for Reynolds. It’s not a huge issue, but after rewatching this movie several times to write this review, it frequently feels very noticeable when it’s a scripted moment, versus when it’s something he came up with.

Climate change has nothing to do with what looks more like
some sort of earthquake and... y'know what, forget it.

“They seem to be attracted to your increasing nudeness!” That sounds like a joke straight out of a Deadpool movie with the curse words filed off. “I don’t wear underwear. I’m not modest.” No you aren’t, Detective. When it comes to nature, you sound more the sassy type. No wonder you like coffee so much. “All I hear is consonants and all I see are nipples.” Thanks, now I can’t unsee them. "At this point, how can you not believe in climate change?" ...That one doesn't even make sense in-context!

Rodent VS Dragon

After the previous battle ends, Pikachu finds himself forced into a rematch against Sebastian’s Charizard. This is the best scene in the film, I swear. While the small mouse detective stretches to get ready for battle, Sebastian pulls out a vial of R for his lizard to inhale, making the Pokémon rabid. Pikachu is terrified, but has to fight. He tries Thunderbolt, but when he tries to call forth his electricity... nothing happens. He forgot how to use his moves. And the more he tries, the more he looks like he’s trying to poop. Low-hanging fruit, but whatever.

No time to dwell on the embarrassment, there's
a genuine danger here!

Complete pandemonium in 3... 2...

This fight scene is amazing, Charizard legitimately looks like a monster (the purple eyes don’t help), and there’s a real tension as our smaller protagonist gets flung left and right. Worried, Tim disregards safety and breaks into the arena to fight the lizard/dragon and distract him. To come to his partner’s aid, Sebastian also enters the arena, only to get smacked by his own ‘Mon and fall to the hard floor. The vials of R? They were made of glass, and several shatter from under his coat, spilling smoke in the place and making ALL the Pokémon around go completely nuts. Forget the danger of these angry creatures all around them; the dude had no shirt on, I’d wager he’s got more than a few open wounds from all the glass shards.

Thankfully, Reynolds didn't go for a brown pants joke
this time. Even the 'zard is terrified.

Chaos ensues, with rabid Pokémon attacking the audience. In the scuffle, Tim manages to make Sebastian speak and admit that the source of the R is “the doctor”. Super-basic nickname, that helps a lot, thanks. After most people and Pokémon had run off, Pikachu tries to get rid of the threatening Charizard by throwing a Magikarp at it. I’d mock that attempt, but while Charizard regains its spirits, the fish evolves and becomes a Gyarados exactly as big and terrifying as they’re supposed to be. The water dragon’ Surf attack gets everyone thrown out into the street... where the RCPD shows up to arrest whoever’s still at the Roundhouse. Including Tim and Pikachu. Whoops.

This gets them a trip to the RCPD and a stern talk from Lt. Yoshida. Tim explains that he was following the clues of his dad’s last investigation to solve it and find Harry. After all, if Pikachu is here, what says that Harry isn’t also alive? Yoshida shows a security camera video of the accident. The Lieutenant believes that nobody could have survived that. Although, considering the stuff Tim survives in this adventure, I'd assume insane pain tolerance runs in the family. Yoshida insists that Harry is dead, and Tim should give up.

First time Tim has any real heart-to-heart with someone
about his situation. Hey, it took a while, but he has a lot to
work through.

Leaving the police department, Tim and Pikachu have a talk. It’s only now that Tim realizes that his dad did care. Harry threw himself into his work out of grief, but when he did finally try to reconnect with his son, he got turned away.  Well, if there’s one mystery no longer worth solving, there’s another one that remains – and understanding that he’s been a jerk to Pikachu the whole time, Tim agrees to keep investigating why the little guy has lost his memories.

For someone who looks like a bad guy, this woman
sure likes pink a lot.

Back there, gold-plated statues of Dialga and Arceus.
Says everything you need to know.

That’s when a car pulls up. A woman comes out. Blonde hair with a pink streak, and matching pink gloves. Big-ass sunglasses at night. Without a word, she invites them into the car and drives them to Clifford Industries, where they meet with Howard Clifford, who casually evolves an Eevee into a Flareon while musing about Pokémon’s ability to evolve into better versions of themselves. Dude surrounds himself with statues of Dialga, Palkia and Arceus; maybe Roger wasn’t entirely wrong about his dad having a god complex.

Howard says that he’s the one who hired Harry and his Pikachu to investigate the source of the R. He believes it’s being produced by people working for his son, who owns CNM and has a lot of power in the city. Right, never trust a billionaire. I guess now is a good time to mention that while Howard Clifford is a character created for the film, Roger is a major character of the original Detective Pikachu game. Howard was likely created to present a father-son relationship foil to Harry and Tim's own.

These holograms are great! Clifford would make a killing
adapting them for, like, card games and stuff.

When Tim says that Harry is dead, Howard disagrees and shows a holographic projection of the car crash, revealing a wounded but alive Harry crawling out of the wreckage with his Pikachu. However, a menacing figure appears above them; Mewtwo. It saps Pikachu’s memories, then takes Harry’s entire body into its being. Howard gives Tim a new task: If he finds Mewtwo, he’ll find his father.

The hunt is on.

To Part 3!