Pokémon Detective Pikachu review: Falls flat on story but succeeds in cuteness

Fans will probably walk away satisfied with the film’s loving, witty handling of its universe, but for others, nothing will make sense

Dir: Rob Letterman. Starring: Justice Smith, Ryan Reynolds, Kathryn Newton, Karan Soni, and Ken Watanabe. PG cert, 104 mins

If you don’t already know what Pokémon are, it’s probably best you don’t try to figure it out. In fact, it’s not something that really can be figured out, considering the entire franchise – which includes trading cards, video games, animated TV shows and movies – revolves around a collective enthusiasm for going out into the wilderness, capturing animals (collectively referred to as Pokémon, meaning pocket monsters), stuffing them into tiny balls and carrying them around so you can occasionally force them to fight each other in gladiatorial-style battles. It’s something you either get, or you don’t.

The same is true of Pokémon’s first live-action foray, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Fans will probably walk away satisfied with the film’s loving, witty handling of its universe, but for anyone who doesn’t know their Eevee from their Vulpix? It’s probably only recommendable as a medically safe path to replicating the hallucinogenic experience – nothing here will make sense to you, and Detective Pikachu makes no effort to explain it.

In fact, it does the opposite, ignoring the more well-known aspects (Ash Ketchum, the main character of the popular anime, for example, and the entire hierarchy of trainers, gyms, and arena battles) and instead adapting a more obscure 2016 game and staying relatively faithful to its storyline. Tim Goodman (Justice Smith), a 22-year-old insurance salesman who has turned his back on all things Pokémon, receives news that his father, a private investigator, has died in a car crash. Arriving in Ryme City to deal with his affairs, Tim crosses paths with his father’s former partner: a Pikachu with a crippling caffeine addiction, a tiny deerstalker on his head, and a tendency to call women “dames”. More importantly, Tim (and only Tim) can understand everything this Pikachu says, in a world where Pokémon can only otherwise communicate with humans by repeating their own names over and over again.

Again, you either get it, or you don’t. This Pikachu not only has amnesia, but he’s latched on to the belief that Tim’s father is still alive, opening a case that only this mismatched duo can solve. They do get a little help along the way, in the form of Lucy (Kathryn Newton), an ambitious reporter who will do anything to cover up the fact she’s actually an unpaid intern who spends all day writing listicles.

The film’s director, Rob Letterman, essentially tries to pull the same manoeuvre he did with 2015’s Goosebumps, based on the popular 1990s horror books: it’s a movie explicitly for kids that still draws heavily on the nostalgia felt by those who grew up with the originals. But here, the result feels more muddled than it should be. Instead of trying to blend the two audiences together, the film relies on moments that play to each individually – maybe it’s a symptom of the film having five credited writers (Letterman, Derek Connolly, Nicole Perlman, Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez).

Take, for example, Detective Pikachu himself, voiced by Ryan Reynolds. The character’s function flips constantly between dual functions: he’s there to spell out what’s happening onscreen so that the younger ones don’t feel left behind, while also trying to wink at the adults in the audience through a series of irreverent wisecracks, with topics ranging from climate change to daddy issues. He’s funny, certainly, but there’s a definite sense that Reynolds was asked by the studio to simply deliver a PG-ified version of his performance in Deadpool.

In fact, you might spend most of Detective Pikachu being reminded of other films. Comparisons to Who Framed Roger Rabbit have been floating around since the release of the film’s first trailer, but more surprising are the visual cues it takes from the palette of Ridley Scott, specifically Blade Runner and Alien. It thankfully, however, feels more intriguing than it does derivative, and it’s a delight for fans to see how immersive this world actually feels. The film does also deliver on its references and Pokémon cameos, with the highlights being Cubone – the emo kid of this universe, who sits around crying and wearing the skull of a dead relative – and Psyduck, who’s better described as a burnt-out millennial, whose stress levels are amped up so high it needs constant foot massages to stop its brain from exploding.

But then why does the film feel a constant need to seek out busy, action-packed set pieces, at the risk of completely derailing the film’s cutesy attempt at neo-noir? And why does it have a cameo from Rita Ora, who also performs the bafflingly generic anthem that plays over the film’s credits? Pokémon fans might get what they want out of it, but who else is the film trying to please? It’s hard to tell, outside of one very important demographic that is generously catered to: people who think Detective Pikachu is absolutely adorable and don’t care what happens in this film, as long he bounces around and waves his fluffy little paws in the air.