VGFlicks: Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Part 4)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Clifford

Oh yeah, that's the face of a savior of humanity right there.
Everybody knows that every hero's favorite face to make
is the friggin' Kubrick Stare. It looks so nice and heroic! /s

At the end of Part 3, Tim met with Howard Clifford only to see the man wearing the neural link from PCL on his head. A capsule containing Mewtwo emerges, showing the Legendary Pokémon also wearing a similar device. When Clifford activates it, his body in the chair goes numb, but Mewtwo’s face turns into an evil scowl betraying the new mind that’s taken over. Even its voice, originally a mix of male and female, is now Howard’s. Now that he's in control of the world’s most powerful Pokémon, the old man now can’t help but reveal everything, then gloat or monologue. Bad guys, amirite? It’s like I said earlier, never trust a billionaire.

Mewtwo using its mouth to talk instead of using telepathy
is somehow extra creepy.

He DID hire Harry to catch Mewtwo, but the detective refused the money and did some digging, following a hunch. He discovered the experiments, and he and his Pikachu freed Mewtwo. We know what happens next. When Tim came around, Howard used the son to track down the Legendary beast. As for the evil plan? The R gas makes Pokémon go feral, pushing their minds back. And Mewtwo happens to have the ability to implant human souls (and/or minds, I guess?) within Pokémon bodies, which can be done either through willing participation from the Pokémon or when they’re frenzied.

Right, inhabiting the body of the "world's most powerful
Pokémon" also means access to phenomenal psychic powers.

The parade floats are filled with R gas, and Howard, fueled by his lifelong obsession with Pokémon evolution and “becoming better versions of ourselves”, plans to force every human at the parade into the body of their partner Pokémon. Of course, to do that, Clifford put himself into the body of the world’s most powerful Pokémon, hoping to rule over his new, um, kin. Yeah, guess his son wasn’t wrong calling out his god complex earlier in the film, huh?

Those powers work fast, damn.

Harold-in-Mewtwo shoves Tim aside, then descends into the streets to announce his grand plan to the crowd. He claims his idea is a cure for the weaknesses of humanity. He breaks the floats, releasing the R everywhere. Lieutenant Yoshida, in the crowd, tries to call for backup but is attacked by his Snubbull. Lucy tries to get to a camera to warn the residents of Ryme City not to let their Pokémon breathe the gas. Howard’s rampage catches up to them, leading to the humans’ bodies disappearing, absorbed into their partners.

This feels forced, yet who cares? It looks cool,
and that's what matters.

Pikachu, who has run all the way from the wilderness into the city, arrives just after every human has been struck by Mewtwo’s psychic wave. He meets Lucy in Psyduck’s body, who explains the situation. Knowing he must make things right, Pikachu climbs onto one of the floats in the air and confronts the madman. Apparently, he didn’t just do this long-ass trip in record time, he also learned to master all his moves, from Thunderbolt to Volt Tackle! And this is gonna be one Hell of a fight. Pikachu VS Mewtwo, on top of Pokémon-shaped floats? I could’ve sworn I’ve seen that before.

Harry

Howard Clifford would have a great plan, if it weren’t that it leaves his original body defenseless. Tim has come to the same conclusion; rip the neural transmitter off, bye-bye connection. However, before he can act on this plan, muffled sounds come from the closet; in there, he finds a tied-up and gagged Roger Clifford. Holy Hell, he did that to his own son? When his mouth is freed, Roger yells at Tim about something behind him; Tim turns around, to see the sunglasses-wearing Roger.

Oh good, Clifford's doing human cloning too.
Or he's relying on a very different type of cloning.

Part of the Internet would say, "...Still would."

While I did figure out the film’s main twist easily, this one took me by surprise when I saw it in theaters. Like everyone else, Howard has a partner Pokémon: A Ditto. Normally, those can only transform into Pokémon they’re looking at, but this one was genetically-enhanced to transform into humans and other Pokémon at will, cycling through forms effortlessly. Earlier in the film, we see it turn into a human to become Howard's handler. But I didn’t click that every time we saw someone with sunglasses on, it was the Ditto in disguise. Why the glasses? Like one featured in the anime, this Ditto's only flaw is that its eyes always remain black beads. It’s unsettling. And by the time of the reveal, it’s very likely you’ve forgotten about Ditto. It plays dirty, too, switching between forms and even turning into Lucy to attack Tim.

Meanwhile, Pikachu fights Howard over the rooftops, while the man occasionally flies by his office to encourage his Ditto. When Tim is in danger of falling from the very high floor of the office, Pikachu Volt Tackles the goddamn Mewtwo into the building. Reminder that this is an average Pokémon against something that’s been compared to a god. Hot damn, how much power is Harry’s Pikachu packing?

Badass! Also, watching this on a loop is satisfying.

As for Tim, he’s saved by Roger, the real one. Part of the reason why the twist of Howard being the actual villain works so well is that what little we saw of the real Roger Clifford didn’t paint a very good picture of the guy, making it believable that he’d be behind everything. (As a matter of fact, in the original Detective Pikachu game, where Howard doesn’t exist, Roger IS the main villain.) There was his outburst at the studio, and then his cruel takedown of Lucy when she came to him with the story about the R – he was a dick about it, sure, but he was right that she needed proper sources. Almost every other time he appears, he has sunglasses on. I like when an adaptation pulls a new twist that makes sense in-universe yet is also still in line with the work being adapted. It's a very tough balancing act.

Tim: "I'm about to end this man's whole ploy."

Just in time!

Tim eventually defeats the Ditto by spraying it with R gas from a tank. Howard, too busy with Pikachu, doesn’t realize he’s being distracted, while Pikachu’s partner reaches the billionaire’s body and pulls the neural link off, ending the connection. Mewtwo and Pikachu almost fall to the ground, but Mewtwo regains consciousness quickly enough to halt their fall in time. Tim comes down and reunites with Pikachu, while the Legendary undoes the damage its powers have done, erasing the R gas, and restoring every human’s body out of their Pokémon.

Everyone's back to normal! ...well, or so we hope.
Would be a shame if Mewtwo forgot someone.

Getting Harry back out of Pikachu is all that was left to do.

Howard Clifford is arrested. Roger recognizes Lucy’s work on the story, tells her to give an in-depth report on the story for the news, and ends by stating that he wants to make things right, which includes ending the genetic experiments. But one thing remains. Mewtwo explains that Harry has been around all along... within Pikachu. Yeah, this is the twist I saw coming, it became far too obvious far too quickly. Maybe the intention was for it to be a twist that’s easy to guess for younger audiences? I dunno. Either way, I feel it pales in comparison to the better twists mentioned earlier; but since it's the twist the whole story lies on, it can't exactly be removed. Maybe it could have gained from being more ambiguous.

Pikachu with its normal mind is the cutest thing.
(Shown here accepting to serve as the vessel for Harry's
mind while the body is kept by Mewtwo.)

As it turns out, on the scene of the car accident, Harry’s Pikachu willingly gave its body to allow Harry to survive. For it to happen, the rodent had to have its memory erased, explaining the amnesia. Mewtwo also asked Pikachu to bring Harry’s son... but why? It’s never explained why Tim was necessary to get Harry out of Pikachu, since Mewtwo easily undid every other mind takeover caused by the R gas. Is it because Pikachu did this willingly? Or was it because Harry's wounds were a lot worse? That bit is poorly explained, and without the proper info, Mewtwo asking for Harry’s son to be present feels tacked-on solely for when neither Tim nor Pikachu had the full story, to make Pikachu believe it had betrayed Harry and would betray Tim.

And this is why Detective Pikachu couldn't be voiced by
Danny DeVito.

Also doesn’t explain why Tim could understand his dad in the Pikachu when no one else could, but by that point, we can just assume the psychic powers did something wacky to let it happen. No matter, Harry Goodman is restored, and we see him at the very end, played by Ryan Reynolds. He's taking his son to the train station, but at the last second, Tim decides to stay in Ryme City with his father. They have so much catching up to do. Maybe try his hand at the whole detective thing. And of course, Pikachu follows them along, little hat still on its adorable fuzzy yellow head.

Roll credits – no special scenes in there; I’m thankful they didn’t pull the “sequel hook” card, just in case a live-action Pokémon sequel wouldn’t happen (though we do know such a film is currently in development, they might not have known at the time). On the plus side, we have art of the human characters from the film drawn by Ken Sugimori himself! So cool.

Final thoughts

You could make a game out of spotting every Pokémon
in the movie.

Studying it in greater depth revealed a few things I could take issue with, but those still feel minimal when compared to the tour de force this movie represents. Often seen as the herald of a new era of film adaptations of video game franchises, Pokémon Detective Pikachu both adapts a video game and presents the franchise’s world in live action for the first time, and knocks it out of the park in both ways. The Pokémon are omnipresent, seen in every shot, often added in ways so subtle we won’t notice them until multiple viewings, and we get a feel not just that the Pokémon are there, but that they’ve indeed always existed in that world. All this, topped off by a story and world that tosses in loads and loads of references to the franchise’s lore and games. Even the anime gets a handful of friendly nods.

Then again, interactions between live-action and CGI are
always super-tricky to do.

Pokémon featured in this movie were given a realistic makeover, and while most still look pretty cute or in line with their original counterparts, some don’t benefit from the upgrade – but what worked and what didn’t depends on what you think is cute or not. The special effects work is solid, though, with only a small number of CGI and live-action interactions with flaws, like when Tim puts Pikachu's hat back on him.

Kathryn Newton and Justice Smith were already fans
of the franchise.

When it comes to characters, I like most of the cast, and I think the actors played their roles very well – Tim starts out as a somewhat unlikeable character, but that can be chalked up to his personal issues, and he grows out of it. Lucy and Psyduck are fun, Mewtwo is as impressive as it should be, and Howard Clifford makes for an interesting villain. (Trivia: Before joining the film’s casting, Bill Nighy knew nothing of the franchise, and came out of filming converted into a fan of the series. Gotta love when that happens.)

Perhaps the element I’m more ambivalent on, characters-wise, is Detective Pikachu himself. So busy that he is with quipping left and right at everything he sees, the character’s detective skills end up underused. And don’t get me wrong, Ryan Reynolds’ quips are very funny, often getting as close to PG-13 as they can without crossing the line. But a point comes where the ad-libbing gets sorta obvious – and whereas it works great for a character like Deadpool, after several viewings of Pokémon Detective Pikachu it takes me out of the experience a bit.

Appropriately, a movie distributed by Warner Bros. has
a scene reminiscent of the Looney Tunes.

The movie’s story is pretty good, it has a strong emotional core, and features a lot of memorable scenes. (The reason I had that “best scene” running gag is that it’s hard to choose one! Uh... Okay, fine, my favorite is the Mr. Mime scene.) Lots of good action as well – the Aipom attack, the fight at the Roundhouse, everything at the labs, the "earthquakes" in the Torterra enclosure... Several scenes here are surprisingly intense. To say nothing of how cool the climax is.

Although, with that said, I will admit that I felt some plot elements were wonky, in part due to the film’s attempts at hiding its twists. I know I’m repeating myself, but the twist of Harry’s mind in Pikachu’s body always felt easy to figure out. There’s an attempt to hide it and foster drama through a misunderstanding by having Mewtwo say things that don’t quite fit with the rest, causing plot holes. I much preferred the other two twists – Howard Clifford being the one behind everything, and the Ditto taking on multiple roles, including that of his own son, to carry out his plan and create a scapegoat.

But even with those points of criticism, I believe that what we have here is a very solid movie, deserving of being called one of the better game-to-film adaptations out there, worth your time if you’re a Pokémon fan, and even if you aren't. A sequel is in development; expectations are gonna be high for that one as well, I can already tell.

Next week: I’m finally going back to reviewing video games!