Gotta catch’em all. A phrase that has pervaded and inspired many children’s minds for decades. For many, Pokemon holds a special place in many people’s hearts, mine included. As it’s popularity grew, Nintendo decided to go out on a limb and try something different with one of it’s most popular brands. When they released the game Detective Pikachu, it was met with an overall positive reception. However, there were many who felt that the game’s story would work better as a movie. This was taken to heart, as of May eleventh of this year, the first ever live action Pokemon movie will be released.

Even though this has excited many, there is the concern that having it be live-action will ruin it. I believe that having a live-action Pokemon movie isn’t necessarily a bad thing and may in fact end up being better than the traditional animated movies that they have released.

The 3D animation technology that we have access to these days are much better and more sophisticated than it was when these other movies were made. In the trailer, they showed multiple pokemon that are easily recognizable within the Pokemon universe.
The main pokemon that they focused on, Detective Pikachu, is just as adorable as he is in the animated Pokemon series. I liked how they made him look really fluffy and gave him big, round eyes. The decision to have Ryan Reynolds voice Detective Pikachu may have been a questionable decision, but they might be able to make it work. They also managed to make Jigglypuff look cute as well. I also liked how they made Charizard look tough and generally awesome. Overall, I appreciated how they were able to retain the cuteness and charm of the original design of the pokemon while shifting the design to make it look more realistic to fit the live-action aspect of the movie.

The way that they respected the rules and characteristics of the Pokemon universe is nice as well. There was one part of the trailer that I really appreciated when it came to that. It was when he was looking at his old pokemon trainer card, which is a pretty important item not only in the games, but in the TV show as well.

There almost seems to be a curse surrounding live-action movies based off of video games, causing them to be bad. Some examples include Assassin’s Creed(2016), Super Mario Bros.(1993) and Mortal Kombat(1995) to name a few. I’ll let the Rotten Tomato scores speak for themselves: Super Mario Bros, 14%; Mortal Kombat, 38%; Assassin’s Creed, 17%. However, there have been some movies based off of games that have been successful, such as Tomb Raider(2018).

Tomb Raider(2018) is a good example of a live action video game movie done right. It successfully portrays the strong, female, young adult archaeologist that is an iconic staple of the Tomb Raider games. It does a nice job at giving a sense of mysticism at the artifact that the main bad guys are looking for. They also highlighted how well Lara Croft is able to adapt and take advantage of her surroundings in the wild. The way that this movie respected the basic foundation of what makes Tomb Raider games the way they are is what ultimately led this movie into success.

While Mortal Kombat(1995) had decent fight scenes, it’s thrown together plot and awkward dialogue tarnished the essence of what really makes Mortal Kombat. The fact that it’s rated PG-13 makes their fatalities laughably bad. While they do include Subzero and Scorpion into the movie, they don’t have any dialogue and they don’t go into their backstories at all, which was disappointing. All of these things culminate into a movie that tries to live up to a legendary game series, but fails to do so.

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