Review: Toy Story 4 (2019)

Posted on June 29, 2019 by Sam S-P
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You gotta be forking kidding me: Disney/Pixar

How many really good fourth movies are there? After STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME and, depending on your 80s tolerance, ROCKY IV, I’m drawing a blank. TOY STORY 4 did not need to be a thing, and yet it I can’t deny that it more than justifies its existence.

When Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw) creates a new friend from trash at her first day of kindergarten, it’s up to Woody (Tom Hanks) and the gang to teach Forky (Tony Hale) the joys of being a toy. But Forky’s escape attempt during a family road trip leads Woody to question his own place in the world and to reconnect with an old flame.

It might be because it’s more explicit this time round, or maybe I was just too young when I watched the other films, but I’d never really appreciated the toys as parents message before. The toys see their role as supporting their kids, being there for them whenever they need them and for as long as they need them.

I would have never expected a character determined to kill himself to be central in a Toy Story movie. Forky, who from the first teaser trailer looked like a cynical, even lazy creation, is a master stroke. Anything can become a toy if a kid plays with it (I for one was particularly beguiled by empty cardboard boxes and saucepans as a small child) but given sentience, would every object be able to cope with the sudden responsibility of emotional attachment? Forky has an existential crisis when he is no longer thought of as disposable (his favourite thing to say for much of the film is a hopeful “Trash?”). He can’t do his job once well and then sleep forever in the comforting trash: more is expected of him, and he didn’t ask for this.

Woody is again acknowledged as an antique toy, making you wonder how many more Andys there were he perhaps can’t remember anymore. Do toys have perfect recall or do their memories fade and go fuzzy just like ours? Does whatever magic that brings these toys and utensils to life wear off or are they cursed to be alone when their loved ones move on?

A good chunk of the film takes place in a shop called Second Chance Antiques. How on the nose can you get? I also can’t think of a quicker route straight to the heartstrings (that unwanted toy gathering dust is *sob* going to get another chance at being loved). It’s a literal jumble of interesting and mundane objects and the setting allows for talented animated to invent imaginative chase scenes and hide in-jokes in the background.

There’s a fair amount of disturbing horror imagery in the shape of our antagonists, a doll and her retinue of four antique ventriloquist dummies. Scares are not alien to this franchise – just look at Sid and his Franken-toys in the first TOY STORY – but it may catch some younger viewers (and their parents) off-guard. Speaking of Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), you’re gearing yourself up for a Stinky Pete or Lotso-style twist and they refreshingly go in a completely different direction.

It’s Hanks’s movie, mainly Woody’s emotional arc. Tim Allen given noticeably less to do as Buzz, usually just acting as a punchline (was Buzz always this stupid?). I loved Bo Peep-as-Sarah Conner from T2. Annie Potts gives the most layered performance of the ensemble and makes you regret her absence from much of the series. Keanu Reeves gamely sends himself up as Canadian daredevil Duke Kaboom (“Yes…I…Canada!”)

Besides all the usual Pixar big-heartedness, there’s some good one-liners, well-timed slapstick and running gags. There’s an unexpectedly dark suggestion of how to delay Bonnie’s family leaving to give Woody and Forky chance to get back: “Let’s frame the dad and send him to jail!”, new double-act toys Bunny and Ducky (Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele) have a creative solution to every challenging situation that comes their way and the third of a trio of “Combat Carls” (all voiced by an appropriate Carl Weathers) is always left hanging in the celebratory high-five stakes.

The ending to Toy Story 4 may not be as pitch-perfect as those that came before, may not be as much of an outright “weepie” but the implications of it all, where and how we’re leaving these characters has a time delay: it may well floor you by the time you get back home. They’ve tied up this story in an incredibly satisfying manner once again, that is until they come up with an idea for TOY STORY 5 in another ten years. SSP

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Review in Brief: See You Yesterday (2019)

Posted on June 26, 2019 by Sam S-P

SEE YOU YESTERDAY is a minor-key delight. Riffing a lot on BACK TO THE FUTIRE II but with punchy social commentary, the film has a special guest star in an early scene, and his appearance would have been enough, but they have him say his catchphrase as well. The movie is carried by two effortlessly compelling performances from Eden Duncan-Smith and Danté Crichlow as time-jumping BFFs. It manages to be stylish, bright and breezy whilst never losing sight of what matters. It’s far more relevant to what’s going on in the world right now than many bigger-budgeted sci-fis and marks director and co-writer Stefon Bristol out as a a distinct artistic voice. Much like something like WE ARE THE BEST! it would be a shame if more pre-teens (especially black pre-teens) didn’t see this just because of a silly thing like strong language. But it’s on Netflix so who’s stopping them…SSP

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Review: X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

Posted on June 22, 2019 by Sam S-P
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Don’t worry, soon we’ll both be in better movies!: Twentieth Century Fox/Donners’ Company

I’ve already forgotten most of APOCALYPSE, though I do for some reason remember Michael Fassbender floating in the air, looking bored and not saying anything for half an hour. I also recall the apparent finality of the ending, with the mutant superhero team finally assembled and in their comics-accurate costumes, then the X-door closes, job done. But no, writer-director Simon Kinberg couldn’t resist having another go at the most beloved X-Men storyline of all. But has he made the same mistakes with DARK PHOENIX as he did with THE LAST STAND thirteen years ago? No, he’s made all new ones!

Following a successful space rescue mission, the X-Men are celebrated as heroes. But Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) returns to Earth changed and carrying the unstoppable and hugely destructive Phoenix Force. Can her team, her family, bring her back to the light?

To be fair to Sophie Turner, at least she gives a performance. At least Phoenix and what it does to the young psychic is the absolute focus of the story this time. Unfortunately, once again it’s scene after scene of other characters telling Jean what she is feeling in a given moment and what she should do. Just like Magneto did in Last Stand, Jessica Chastain’s alien character says she should be free, her powers fully unchained then proceeds to use her like a sentient gun. Where’s the agency of this title character?

Professor X (James McAvoy) and his questionable actions come across a little better this time round. He at least seems conflicted and guilty about messing with Jean’s subconscious when she was a child rather than a mind-raping sociopath. This is mostly because you have Hank/Beast (Nicholas Hoult, the only genuinely good thing in this) as an incredulous audience stand-in and their grief-stricken argument in the kitchen of the X-Mansion is one of few highlights.

Early on, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence, glad to be out) questions why Professor X hasn’t renamed his team “The X-Women” yet since it’s the female members of the team always saving the day? She’s not wrong, but wow Simon Kinberg that’s a crashingly awkward way of saying it in your movie. Speaking of Kinberg’s writing, he regularly contradicts the previous movies, some of which he wrote himself. I’m sorry to do this sort of analysis but there’s that little else of interest here. How did Jean manifest her Phoenix powers last time to beat Apocalypse if she encounters the Phoenix Force for the first time here, ten years later? Why does Professor X claim to have built Cerebro when we clearly saw Hank do this in FIRST CLASS, and more importantly why doesn’t Hank correct him when he’s standing right behind him?! And are we really expected to believe Charles, Erik and Hank are somewhere between 50 and 60 years old by this point? Why didn’t you even give Michael Fassbender a little bit of grey at his temples?

The film looks exactly as expensive as it thinks it needs to. A flashy set piece at the beginning and one at the end aside, all the action looks a bit TV series finale.  The space rescue looks good but is a pretty boring and unimaginative sequence. The X-Men following Jean back home as her powers awaken is devoid of life and virtually identical to the same scene in Last Stand (only the victim of Phoenix’s power changes). The New York nighttime street skirmish is messily put together bordering on incomprehensible. The final train fight is entertaining when focussing on the mutants with the more visually distinctive powers (basically, Magneto and Nightcrawler) but is just stalling for time before the final Phoenix confrontation.

Fatally for this adaptation there’s just not enough human feeling to this take on the most emotional, even melodramatic X-Men story. Despite giving Scott/Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) plenty to do, it mostly amounts to running and optic blasting, and shouting “Jean!” ad nauseam. Asking us to really care about this Jean/Scott relationship after only spending one-and-a-bit films with them (where they’re only now getting any real screentime) is a bit of an ask.

This is the last X-Men review I’ll be writing for the foreseeable, which makes me rather sad – I love the X-Men. But the Fox movies have been patchy at best, and hopefully the next iteration of these characters won’t so quickly lose sight of who they are and what they’re about. You’ve been gifted one of the most interesting and diverse ensembles of characters out there: use them. SSP

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Review: X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Sam S-P
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How long left on this godawful shoot, Ian?: Twentieth Century Fox/Donners’ Company

Remember how for the opening flashback of X-MEN: THE LAST STAND they smoothed out Patrick Stewart’s face to an alarming degree to make him look 25 years younger but just gave Ian McKellen some hair dye and a hat? Maybe because Stewart has looked the same since at least the early 80s they had to make Professor X’s past appearance look more drastic, but it was terrifying nonetheless. Things didn’t get much less distressing in the 100 minutes that followed…

The war between humanity and mutantkind is brought to a head by the invention of a cure for mutation, prompting terror attacks from the radical mutant leader Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his followers. Only the heroic mutant X-Men can prevent catastrophe by defending humanity, meanwhile apparently deceased teammate Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) returns and is far from herself…

So a boy crying in a bathroom with blood and feathers on the floor somehow equals mutant to his dad? It looks more like the kid has been covertly slaughtering chickens. Speaking of which there is precisely zero point to Angel (Ben Foster, whose every subsequent performance was better) being in this.

Fanservice alert: teasing the Sentinels in the Danger Room, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) doing the “fastball special”, Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) finally fully icing up. I see you movie, and I’m not impressed. Also, introducing mutant power classes is fanboy nonsense that cheapens every character involved. Speaking of cheapening, “You reading my thoughts?” She doesn’t have to, Logan – you and the pervy camera clearly just ogled her cleavage.

Even with all the first-draft, explaining away all ambiguity and nuance dialogue (“What was that?” / “Danger Room session”, “They’re ready” / “But are you?”) Hugh Jackman is somehow still good. Kelsey Grammar is still good even in blue. Ian McKellan does his best with the worst and most simplistic rendering of Magneto in the entire series.

Having Grammar’s Beast in a diplomatic capacity as a mutant in the human President’s cabinet is a really nice idea, pays off the resolution of X2 and then…goes nowhere. Thst should have been the basis for a good chunk of the movie – I wanted Beast added to THE WEST WING!

The Bobby/Kitty (Ellen Page) ice skating scene is nice and all, but it undermines him as a character who always been decent before (where’s Rogue’s shoulder to cry on?) and further dumps on Rogue (Anna Paquin) by having her not confront him and just walk out of the movie. Rogue should fight; it’s in her nature. This mutant desire for normality played a lot better with young Beast in FIRST CLASS, whose mutation was more noticeable.

Forcing a cure on an unwilling population who isn’t sick is the natural end-point to the overarching allegory of Bryan Singer’s X-films, so I can see why they went for it. “The Cure” should have been the while movie and “Dark Phoenix” should have been the basis of at least two more films.

Belligerent, high-and-mighty Professor X is an uncomfortable fit. “The greater good” is more a Magneto thing, and because they turned Professor X into Magneto, they had to turn Magneto into something far less interesting. He’s basically Emperor Palpatine in this, and I couldn’t think of anything else but the Anakin/Palpatine/Windu scene in REVENGE OF THE SITH during the Jean/Professor X/Magneto confrontation.

“In chess the pawns go first” is the worst line Magneto could have uttered if you want him to stay true to his character. Aside from cheapening the playful scenes of gamesmanship and ideological and philosophical debate he had with Xavier in the first two movies, it’s just not him. His methods may be uncompromising, but he should shed a tear for every mutant life lost in his campaign for freedom.

There’s a wonderful simplicity to the gag of a mother locking her family car door as Magneto and his brotherhood of pissed-off mutants march by. We’re starving for good jokes this token effort may get us through! Almost as funny is seeing that some bright spark organised for Magneto’s closest ally to be transported in a small convoy of metal vehicles.

The final battle is an underwhelming close to a superhero trilogy. I suppose it’s to be expected as Magneto didn’t really assemble an army, he assembled the audience to the warmup act of a small music festival. Our grand finale is a jumble of indistinct characters, boring fight choreography and terrible wirework. But you already know this; The Last Stand is still a massive letdown thirteen years later. Join me next time to see just how Simon Kinberg screwed up his Dark Phoenix: Take 2. SSP

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Review: Rocketman (2019)

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Sam S-P
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Saturday night’s alright… : Marv Films/New Republic Pictures

ROCKETMAN is the second musical I’ve really loved this year. Whereas the first, WILD ROSE kept its cowboy-booted feet firmly on the ground, the story of the man formally known as Reg Dwight’s formative years and breakthrough floats off into another plain. This is more rock opera than straight biopic, is appropriately camp and always feeling emotionally connected even as it removes itself from reality.

Reginald Dwight, AKA Elton Hercules John’s (Taron Egerton) life from childhood to breakthrough, fame and rehab (and not necessarily in that order) as told through his music.

Taron Egerton is a force of nature in this. Yes, he’s very kind casting for young Elton John even when given happy teeth and a receding hairline, but you really don’t mind after he belts out the first tune. Making his mark in the opening scene as he swagger-staggers into rehab in full stage regalia, he completely metamorphoses into Elton. A few scenes of an predictably miserable childhood later Egerton yanks the spotlight back to him, completely owning the strikingly choreographed musical number to “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and the energy never dissipates again. Bryce Dallas Howard is…leftfield casting for Elton’s mother, but she’s better here than she has been in a long time here (despite some not good old age makeup later on), with strong support also coming from Gemma Jones and Jamie Bell.

It’s the dramatic license, the liberties taken with the chronology of songs and events that frees the film, that gives it a loose energy. What song from Elton’s entire career conveys where he’s at at this particular moment in life the most effectively? Who cares if it’s one of his later hits that he’s singing as an unloved child (Matthew Illesley)? Very early on in his career we see him don the first of his eye-catching stage costumes and from here on he rarely lets his performance persona slip, entombing his myriad issues behind flamboyance, substances and sex.

Elsewhere when fantasy takes precedent, Elton’s onlookers, in a rather playful decision from director Dexter Fletcher, occasionally appear to notice when we hit the realms of magical realism. Audiences float, Elton rocket-boosts off into the sky, in one dazzling montage he goes through a decade’s worth of costume changes in thirty seconds as his piano spins and throws off a ring of fireworks.

The film it reminded me most of wasn’t another musical but another biopic of a musician that played fast and loose with perception and how making art can alter it: AMADEUS. Both films only use a great musician’s documented life as a starting point for telling a story that’s interesting, artistically, thematically and emotionally, on its own terms and both get quite surreal as well.

I know Fletcher probably doesn’t want to be reminded about how he was left clearing up someone else’s mess but it’s only when compared to distinctive projects like this that it becomes clear how far short BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY fell. It was just so mechanical. It didn’t seem interested what made its subject tick, just what he could do. This is the warts-and-all examination of a superstar we want. Sex and drugs and rock and roll and then some.

It’s appropriate that the film’s final musical number is “I’m Still Standing”, complete with Egerton cleverly inserted into the iconic music video. That’s Elton speaking to us as a survivor of a bad time in his life. It was also essentially Egerton’s audition piece, he having already performed it as an animated Gorilla in SING.

Rocketman demonstrates mastery of sound, colour and movement throughout, much like Elton himself. This is without a doubt Dexter Fletcher’s strongest film, one of the most engrossing and entertaining biopics around and a feelgood new musical to boot. This is the kind of film that Freddie Mercury deserved. SSP

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Review: Good Omens (2019)

Posted on June 16, 2019 by Sam S-P
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To the un-ending of the world: Amazon/BBC/Narrativia

GOOD OMENS has been a Biblically long time coming. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman seemed to have given up after years of false starts at adapting their 1990 fantasy novel but Pratchett’s terminal illness and Gaiman’s promise to him finally got the project off the ground. Was it worth the wait? As the tenth incarnation of a certain Time Lord might say, “Ohh yes!”.

For the thousands of years since God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and demon Crowley (David Tennant) have been living among mankind, and have become rather accustomed to their creature comforts. That all changes when their superiors in Heaven and Hell announce the end is nigh and the Antichrist will soon be brought forth to do what Antichrists do. But not even the end of the world is simple when the forces of good and evil make one hell of a cockup…

Gaiman adapts his own co-authored work almost to the letter here. All the novel’s witty, mischievous and often silly jokes at the expense of the subjects of religion (Divine Plan/ineffability), pedantry (“Angels aren’t occult, we’re ethereal”) and human nature (anything involving Queen or the M25) are present and correct. There are of course revisions and expansions as well, the strongest of which is seen in the third episode, which has a 25 minute pre-title sequence of new material that sees Crowley and Aziraphale entertainingly bumping into each other at various points throughout human history.

Sheen and Tennant aren’t exactly how I imagined Aziraphale and Crowley (also for the record I’ve also been pronouncing Crowley wrong since I read the book), but from their first scene grumbling on top of the Garden of Eden’s perimeter wall all doubts melted away. They are an obscenely good pairing, playfully ripping into each others’ increasingly human quirks and nudging each other to and fro on the moral line despite seemingly the most content inhabiting and hanging out in the comfy grey area in the middle. The cast is bolstered by John Hamm as a sneering blowhard Archangel Gabriel, Michael McKean as a crusty and backwards Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell and Adria Arjona as frustrated modern witch Anathema Device, whose ancestor predicted this whole end of the world thing. Also look out for fun cameos from the League of Gentlemen and Just A Minute’s own Nicholas Parsons (just lost non-British readers there).

The title sequence (by Peter Anderson) with marionette versions of Aziraphale and Crowley walking through an animated version of human history as civilisation rises, falls and heads towards oblivion and the events of the show on a heavenly travelator is something truly special. I’d love a some art in exactly this style to hang on my wall.

Now, the nitpicks. I think Brian Cox was miscast as the voice of Death. Something about his delivery didn’t gel, I think because he comes across as angry and wrathful rather than pragmatic and inevitable. I like the idea of Heaven and Hell appearing as a chic office space and a mouldy tube station respectively, though I wanted something a bit more creative in the designs of the angels and demons in their true forms than suits and sparkles for the divine and suits and sores for the damned.

You could quibble at the effects budget as well, but to be honest Good Omens is a very British thing and wobbly CGI is what we do on TV (have you ever watched DOCTOR WHO?). It’s part of the charm.

It’s a shame, but it’s right that we’ll never get a sequel book or series. A sequel is set up in both versions by the emergence of a second manuscript of prophesies which Anathema chooses not to read in the book, and burns on screen. It’s likely why after we get to the novel’s ending the TV show has Aziraphale and Crowley get called to answer for their perceived crimes, before they both of course wriggle out of any real punishment. That’s the matter closed, and this story ended definitively by Neil out of respect for Terry. I don’t think it ever really hit me before how closely Aziraphale and Crowley’s friendship echoes Pratchett and Gaiman’s, how the characters’ personalities are so clearly based on them and how they all love good sushi (though I do remember seemingly subconsciously giving Aziraphale a Pratchett-esque lisp in my head as I read the book).

Good Omens is not a perfect adaptation, but it’s a Very Nice and Accurate one. It’s not likely to convert those not already enamoured with Pratchett and Gaiman’s distinctive shared voice, but it’s a treat for fans, a fitting tribute to Pratchett and an entertaining and quite scarily relevant show in its own right. What better time is there for a story about heading to oblivion all because of an ill-defined, ineffable plan when this is actually happening all over the planet?  SSP

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Review in Brief: Loqueesha (2019)

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Sam S-P

“Official Selection – San Luis Obispo International Film Festival 2019”. Me neither. Five minutes into LOQUEESHA, writer-director-star Jeremy Saville hasn’t started talking like what he thinks black people talk like yet, but he has done a wildly offensive Gandhi impression instead. Apparently if you hang around for long enough in a deserted bar offering asinine advice that makes you sound like the Sphinx from MYSTERY MEN then you’ll be handed your big break. Joe/Loqueesha thinks xenophobia is the same as anthrophobia and/or agoraphobia, and Saville may not know the difference either. They get the only black guy in this (Dwayne Perkins) to say, completely straight-faced, “I don’t know what I’m more impressed by, you as a black woman or your therapy techniques”. Joe later berates a woman (Mara Hall) for not being as good at being black as he is, and she just accepts this. It’s a lazy, self-congratulatory and narcissistic insult of a movie. SSP

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Review: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Posted on June 9, 2019 by Sam S-P
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Someone looks pissed: Warner Bros/Legendary Entertainment

I’m not going to say the general critical consensus on GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS is grossly unfair – each to their own. I thought it was halfway decent, but only if I didn’t think about it too much. Come for the monsters, the visuals and some much better performances than you might expect. But is there enough in this whole package to make it worth all the effort?

Five years after titanic nuclear lizard Godzilla surfaced to fight other unnatural monsters, cryptozoological organisation Monarch discover more ancient titans in hibernation around the world. Their research into the creatures’ communication and hierarchy releases Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan and leaves humanity in need of Godzilla to restore balance before the proverbial reset button on life on Earth is hit.

You probably came for the monsters beating the crap out of each other, and the movie provides. My favourite moment of titanic smackdownage was Godzilla rugby-tackling Ghidorah through a skyscraper. There are four main monsters this time, all drawn from Toho Studios’ back catalogue. ‘Zilla himself, arch-alpha/hydra Ghidorah, hypnotic super-moth Mothra and fiery pteranodon Rodan. They’re all given origin scenes, paired off and smashed together in a variety of entertaining ways…eventually.

The main problem with Gareth Edwards’ film was that the human characters we had to follow whenever Godzilla wasn’t on screen (which was nearly always) were really boring. This time the humans are better, not necessarily because they’re any better-written (they’re not) but that much of the cast really go for it. Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobbie Brown and Ken Watanabe all take their characters on interesting journeys though I can’t say Kyle Chandler and Charles Dance keep up with them by staying firmly within their acting comfort zones. And poor Sally Hawkins! One of the only returning players from last time gets a couple of inconsequential lines at the beginning then isn’t in it anymore.

Usually all I ask for to give a large-scale monster blockbuster at least a pass are a few really memorable images of fantasy creatures doing their thing. While King of the Monsters has frames that are too overcrowded or smothered in CG rain or ash, when Michael Docherty slows down for long enough to look up in awe, we get some achingly beautiful images. Mothra’s bioluminescent descent from the heavens, Ghidorah’s three heads silhouetted against stormy skies…

A special mention should go to Bear McCreary for his sublime score, one I may buy even if I never watch the movie again. It nods to earlier Toho movies, draws from a rich collage of cultural influences and gives everything the right grand and foreboding feel.

Monarch makes little to no sense as an organisation, but I don’t think we’re supposed to overthink them; like SHIELD, they’re just a plot device. Our heroes’ whole plan is cracking a nut with a hammer, or more accurately cracking a nut with a nuke. And then another nuke. I’m not really sure what message we’re sending if nuclear weapons start and end a problem, but whatever. The film doesn’t have much faith in humanity at all, which is in-keeping with the wider Godzilla franchise. Unfortunately any deeper thematic dive is aborted whenever the monsters resume their clash or a human does something really stupid, and both happen often.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a marked improvement on the 2014 reboot but is still a way away from being a truly satisfying movie. Epic monster confrontations and beautiful shot compositions don’t save it from being too long and loose and not quite deciding what it’s trying to say. Big monsters fighting just because is fine. Big monsters fighting as metaphor is better. Big monsters fighting as half-baked metaphor is just frustrating. SSP

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Review in Brief: The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (2018/19)

Posted on June 5, 2019 by Sam S-P

This might not surprise you given its title, but THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN THE BIGFOOT is a weird creature. But it’s not necessary weird for the reasons you might expect. Aside from an early prop gag and a gross-out moment towards the end it’s played really straight. The tone and performances in the thing suggest serious drama but it never seems to get into much real meat unless it’s all in the nebulous subtext. It’s an old-fashioned good-looking movie with a satisfying Sam Elliot lead performance as he looks to his tall tale past, but I really struggled to get what the take on life, love, duty, old age and sacrifice actually was. Director Robert D Krzykowski could well be one to watch in future judging by how confidently he mounts his first feature, but it’s still a fascinatingly frustrating debut. SSP

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Review: Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)

Posted on June 1, 2019 by Sam S-P
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Elementary: Warner Bros/Legendary Entertainment/The Pokemon Company

Is DETECTIVE PIKACHU the best video game movie ever made? Probably. Does it stand up as a film in its own right? Mostly. Sorry if it seems like I’m sitting on the fence with this one but I’m genuinely struggling to tell what % of my view is based on unbridled nostalgia.

Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) teams up with a talking Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) and a reporter (Kathryn Newton) to solve his father’s death, leading to a conspiracy that will profoundly affect the human-Pokémon harmony of Rime City.

I was a typical 90s Pokéfan; I played the games, I collected the cards and I watched the anime religiously. The animated Pokémon movies that spun off from the TV show I seem to remember being…OK but I get the feeling if I watched them again now after 20 years they’d be considerably less than that.

Detective Pikachu’s mystery plot is a relatively simple one to solve, but we’re taken the scenic route to get to a resolution. There is a late in the game twist that I’ll admit I didn’t see coming, though when I think back all the clues are in plain sight. Whatever the conspiracy being hatched, the baddie’s grand master plan that needs foiling, really it’s all about Pikachu and Tim’s burgeoning relationship as they work towards a common goal.

I’m going to put this down to the younger target audience (the film has two audiences: 90s kids and children of said 90s kids) but there were a few too many instances of characters stopping dead to explain what was going on and why it’s important. Give us a little credit. You also don’t need to call out every Pokémon glimpsed by name; big and little kids in the audience will doubtless already be doing that.

This is the kind of geek property movie that demands to be rewatched and freeze-framed. There’s so much packed into every shot and half the featured Pokémon (reportedly around 60 of the 800-odd total) are blink-and-you’ll miss them. I loved the production design in general on this movie, from the East-meets-West utopia to the photo-real recreation of some of the technology from the anime, to giving believable life to the little monsters themselves. Seeing how humans and Pokémon live and work together, even fleetingly, is fascinating. It all adds to the film’s texture and makes every key scene in Rime City feel alive.

Aside from all the Poké-cameos, some of the monsters get more extended and memorable appearances. My favourite creature was always Cubone, the skull-wearing “lonely Pokémon” who I was thrilled to see gets his moment early on in the movie. Psyduck is as loveable and bewildering as he should be, purple monkey Aipom is rendered more disturbing than you could imagine, larger monsters Charizard and Gyarados get show-stopping battle appearances and The Mr Mime scene teased in the trailer gets…unexpectedly dark. There’s also a fair bit of imagination to the larger scaled action set pieces which I won’t spoil by describing in detail.

The human performances are a mixed bag. I can’t really tell yet what kind of an actor Justice Smith is yet but I also can’t say that he oozes leading man charisma, though he bounces well off of Reynolds, who avoids being a custard-coloured Deadpool. Far more engaging and complex is Kathryn Newton’s Lucy, who I really wish was the co-lead. Among the veterans we have Ken Watanabe who is always able to lend weight to nonsensical exposition (see also GODZILLA) and Bill Nighy who finds himself halfway between two of his go-to genre film character archetypes.

I had quite a bit of fun with Detective Pikachu, but I can’t guarantee someone with no familiarity with the Pokémon world would get much at all out of it. The story and characters are generic and the script wouldn’t have much memorable about it at all without the affability of Reynolds as the titular yellow rodent. But it’s vivid and energetic and big-hearted and if you’ve got any affection for the 90s craze I can almost guarantee you’ll like it. SSP

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