Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)

When Pokémon Detective Pikachu was announced in 2016, a fair few people assumed it was a joke. A live-action Pokémon film, based not on the main series of games but on the 2016 Nintendo 3DS spin-off Detective Pikachu, with Ryan Reynolds voicing the world's most recognisable electric mouse? It sounded, at best, like a fever dream, and at worst like precisely the sort of cynical cash-grab that tends to come from studios who have acquired a beloved IP and are not quite sure what to do with it. And yet here we are: a finished film, 105 minutes long, distributed through a partnership involving Legendary Pictures, The Pokémon Company, and TOHO, and released in May 2019 to an audience that spanned wide-eyed children and thirty-somethings who grew up collecting cards in the late nineties. The Pokémon franchise itself, of course, needs little introduction. Born in Japan in 1996 as a pair of Game Boy titles, it has since become one of the highest-grossing media franchises on the planet, spanning games, animation, merchandise, and now, apparently, neo-noir detective fiction.

The film is directed by Rob Letterman, whose career has been a polished but unremarkable journey through family and genre entertainment, from his early animated work (you can read my thoughts on his Shark Tale) through to the rather enjoyable Goosebumps in 2015. He is a competent pair of hands with this sort of material, comfortable with effects-heavy productions and light-touch storytelling aimed at a broad audience. The screenplay, adapted from the game with additional original plotting, sets its story in Ryme City, a fictional metropolis where humans and Pokémon coexist without the traditional trainer-and-battle structure that fans of the games know well. Justice Smith leads the human cast as Tim Goodman, a young man drawn into a mystery involving his missing detective father, with Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, and Ken Watanabe rounding out a cast that brings a certain amount of credibility to what could easily have felt throwaway. Reynolds, meanwhile, provides the voice of Pikachu himself, a role that leans heavily on the sardonic, self-aware persona he has refined over years in Hollywood, including work you might recognise from his appearances in films like Life and, more recently, Deadpool & Wolverine. Whether that persona fits the character is, as you might expect, something of a conversation point.

What is not in dispute is the ambition of the production's visual approach. The creature design work received considerable attention ahead of release, partly because early renders sparked the sort of internet horror that greets any attempt to make a beloved cartoon character look "realistic", and partly because the finished results were, by most accounts, considerably more successful than expected. The world-building, too, drew praise for the density of its references to the game series. Whether all of that craft translates into a satisfying film is another matter entirely.

Detective Pikachu (2019) is the kind of movie that sounds like a dream to a Pokémon-obsessed kid: a live-action world where Pikachu talks, battles are real, and the lore of the games leaps off the screen. Visually, it delivers. Pikachu himself is brilliantly rendered, expressive and fuzzy enough to feel tangible, but I feel like Ryan Reynolds’ snarky-but-sweet voice really doesn't match the Pikachu vibe. The neon-drenched Ryme City is packed with Easter eggs, and the creature designs (from Psyduck to Mr. Mime) are lovingly faithful. But here’s the issue: this isn’t really a Pokémon movie in the way fans might hope. There’s no gym challenge, no Poké Balls catching wild ‘mons, no journey to become a trainer. Instead, we get a convoluted noir-lite mystery about corporate conspiracies and amnesia, centered on a human journalist (Justice Smith) and his caffeine-addicted, coffee-chugging Pikachu. The story feels oddly detached from what makes Pokémon magical, the bond between trainer and partner, the sense of adventure, the joy of discovery. It’s not bad, just baffling in its choices. For all its polish and fan service, it sidelines the heart of the franchise in favor of a generic sci-fi plot that could’ve existed without Pokémon at all. Slick, occasionally fun, and visually impressive, but a missed opportunity. Seven-year-old me would’ve been thrilled by the concept… then confused why Ash wasn’t there, why nobody’s trying to “catch ‘em all,” and why Pikachu solves crimes instead of battling Team Rocket. Sometimes, faithfulness matters more than flash.

And that tension, between spectacle and soul, is something I keep coming back to whenever a franchise adaptation lands on my radar. For me, the most frustrating films are not the ones that fail outright but the ones that get so close and then veer away from the thing that made people care in the first place. Detective Pikachu has clearly been made by people who care about the look of this world, and I can appreciate that effort even when the script lets it down. If you have a younger viewer in the house who just wants to see Charizard on a big screen, they will not be bored. But if you grew up with the games, with the music, with that particular feeling of setting out from Pallet Town, you might spend a chunk of the runtime feeling like you ordered a full roast and got a very attractively plated sandwich. Impressive enough on its own terms. Just not quite what you came for.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2019  | Watched: 2026-03-04

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) on YouTube

Where to watch

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Related on Movies With Macca

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