Pokémon: The Arceus Chronicles (2022)
Pokémon has been a cultural institution for the better part of three decades now. What began in 1996 as a pair of Game Boy role-playing games from Nintendo and Game Freak, built around the simple but irresistible idea of collecting and battling pocket monsters, became one of the most lucrative media franchises the world has ever seen. The animated series launched in 1997, and by the time it reached Western shores it was a genuine phenomenon, shaping the childhoods of an entire generation. The films that followed occupied a curious space: part theatrical event, part extended television episode, aimed squarely at younger audiences but carrying just enough emotional weight, at their best, to hold the attention of accompanying adults. Pokémon: The First Movie in 1998 remains, for many, a surprisingly affecting piece of work for what it is. The franchise has been chasing that standard, with mixed results, ever since.
Pokémon: The Arceus Chronicles, released in 2022, arrives as part of the long-running anime series rather than as a standalone theatrical production in the traditional sense. It was broadcast across several markets and later distributed internationally via Netflix, which places it firmly in the category of television event special rather than genuine cinema release, whatever the feature-length runtime might suggest. The film sits within the tail end of the Journeys series of the anime, continuing Ash Ketchum's ongoing adventures alongside Goh and Dawn, while also revisiting older characters from earlier chapters of the story. Its subject, the legendary Pokémon Arceus, ties it loosely to the broader mythology expanded upon in the Nintendo Switch game Pokémon Legends: Arceus, also released in 2022, though the connections are more atmospheric than narratively substantial. The production is a joint effort from OLM, the Japanese animation studio that has handled the Pokémon anime since its very beginning, and the workmanlike consistency of that long relationship is both reassuring and, depending on your expectations, a little limiting.
As with most entries in the franchise, the vocal talent here is the established ensemble that long-term fans will recognise immediately. Sarah Natochenny continues as the English-language voice of Ash, a role she has held since 2006, bringing the same reliable energy to a character who, despite decades on screen, somehow never seems to age or accumulate much in the way of hard-won wisdom. The returning presence of Brock, one of the series' most beloved supporting characters from its earliest days, is likely to generate a certain warm nostalgia in older viewers, though what the production actually does with him is another matter entirely.
Let’s get one thing straight: I know we are talking about a franchise where monsters shoot lightning from their cheeks and evolve via friendship. But there is a line, and Pokémon: The Arceus Chronicles (2022) happily vaults right over it.
Watching this feature, directed by Yuji Asada and Daiki Tomiyasu, I was struck by a profound sense of whiplash. We are re-introduced to Brock, the steadfast, reliable companion from the original Indigo League days we all grew up loving, only to find him bizarrely reimagined as a shirtless, rocket-ship-flying Pokémon doctor. It is a logical mess that completely strips away any remaining shred of grounded reality the series once clung to. Honestly, it’s just a bit of a mess.
The narrative struggles to find its footing, resulting in a storyline that is incredibly one-note. Instead of a tightly paced cinematic adventure, the film meanders, most notably during a sequence involving an erupting Heatran that goes on for an absolute age. It feels less like a properly structured feature-length production and much more like a standard Tuesday afternoon TV episode that someone decided to stretch out to fill a 90-minute runtime. The pacing is sluggish, and the stakes never feel genuinely earned because the plot is too busy treading water.
To be fair to the technical crew, the animation is perfectly fine, and the voice acting hits the expected, familiar beats without stumbling. It looks and sounds exactly like the television series, which is both its greatest comfort and its most glaring limitation. But pretty colours and competent vocal delivery can only do so much heavy lifting. When the foundational script is this poor from a storytelling perspective, no amount of flashy, if repetitive, animation can disguise the fact that there is simply no narrative meat on the bone.
The Arceus Chronicles is a missed opportunity that will likely only satisfy the most die-hard, uncritical fans of the franchise. Asada and Tomiyasu have delivered a product that feels entirely devoid of cinematic ambition, coasting on brand recognition rather than offering a compelling, standalone adventure. It is a harmless enough watch for the very young, but for anyone expecting a proper movie, it is a deeply underwhelming experience.
Pokémon: The Arceus Chronicles is, in the end, probably exactly what you would expect from a franchise operating comfortably within its own well-worn grooves, and that comfort is precisely the problem. The Pokémon anime has always had a ceiling when it comes to narrative ambition, but the best entries in the film series have at least attempted to push against it. What this one offers instead is brand familiarity dressed up as an event, the cinematic equivalent of a greatest-hits compilation where someone has quietly swapped out the good tracks. If you have young children who are currently in the full grip of Pokémon fever, it will pass an afternoon without incident. For everyone else, there are considerably better ways to spend ninety minutes, including, it has to be said, simply rewatching the original series and remembering why any of this mattered in the first place.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2026-07-13
