Pika-Marlowe

Back in 1996 Nintendo unleashed upon the unsuspecting world an addictive video game called Pokémon, featuring a cute and cuddly “pocket monster” named Pikachu, and the world had never been the same ever since for better or worse.  With The Pokémon Company managing the brand name, the Pokémon franchise developed into a worldwide phenomenon that still endures over 20 years later, with the recent Pokémon Go craze and now a live-action CGI-animated movie featuring the yellow lightning bolt-tailed Pikachu as a – I kid you not - gumshoe detective in a faux film noir setting.

 

The only reason I went to see the tame and family-friendly PG-rated ‘Detective Pikachu’ is because of my movie subscription with AMC, and maybe just a bit of curiosity.  God knows, I was never caught up in “Pokémon fever” or any such non-sense.  ‘Detective Pikachu’ is steeped in noir-ish “mystery” in a universe where humans and Pokémon monsters co-exist in a sort of symbiotic relationship wherein the Pokémon serves as a physical “familiar” of sorts.  They live harmoniously in the neon-lit metropolis Ryme City, founded by the fatherly entrepreneur and visionary Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy in a Pokémon movie, go figure).  When no-nonsense young insurance adjuster Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) reluctantly went to Ryme City in search of his missing father who may well be dead, he found himself swept into a world of intrigue, deceit and mystery.  With the help of Detective Pikachu and spunky young female investigative reporter Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton), can Tim solve the case of his missing father played by Ryan Reynolds (who also voiced Pikachu)?  Yeah, as if we don’t know the answer to that question already.

 

For the Pokémon fans and kiddies, I’m sure ‘Detective Pikachu’ is a welcome new entry in the popular Pokémon franchise.  For the less initiated or those who never cared much for it (like myself for instance), it was a boring and mind-numbing slog whose 104 minutes running time seemed about 30 minutes too long.

Grade: C