Detective Pikachu - The Daily Dot

‘Detective Pikachu’ is the first honestly good video game movie

Joseph Knoop — Fri, 10 May 2019 14:10:49 +0000

When we talk about a “good video game movie,” what do you think of? Do you expect a nonstop clash of CGI ala Warcraft? Do you think of source material that can be summarized on a Post-It note like Rampage? Maybe you look back on Tomb Raider fondly? Let’s not even acknowledge the existence of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Detective Pikachu

RELEASE DATE: 5/10/2019
DIRECTOR: Rob Letterman
This Ryan Reynolds-led effort finds enough heart and soul to win over the grumpy millennials who grew up with the game.

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu will give you a lot of things to think of, even as it veers less toward adult in-jokes and more toward kid-friendly hijinks, but the most important feeling it imparts is the same one I always felt booting up Pokémon Gold back near the turn of the century. I may be young and aimless, but here’s a world I can actually live in, filled with adventure, and some pokémon out there is going to become my best friend along the way.

https://youtu.be/1roy4o4tqQM

Listen to Dan Hernandez (one of four writers credited) on Twitter, and you’ll see him explain how he and fellow writer Benji Samit’s only hope at making this thing work was to convince viewers that pokémon are real. They, and of course the effects team behind bringing those pokémon to life, have done that and far more. And so Detective Pikachu is the first legitimately good video game movie. It’s not just “good enough.” It’s not so-bad-it’s-good. It is the first video game film adaptation that not only nails the look of its source material but its soul. All it took was a young man with abandonment issues and a yellow mouse in a deerstalker cap.

The plot works even if it's messy. A lot of its various arcs are pulled out of film noir, right down to the infamous fake film from Home Alone that was likely some viewers' first introduction to the genre. Ryme City, at night anyway, is awash in neon light and street vents billowing steam.

Tim Goodman is a lonely young man who never quite made it as a pokémon trainer, and has his reasons for never taking on one of them as a partner, as most in this world seem to do. When his estranged father, a police detective in Ryme City (think Zootopia for pokémon) supposedly dies in a mysterious car crash, Tim is spurred to clean up this last part of his former life, only to run into a wise-cracking Pikachu voiced by Ryan Reynolds. The adorable detective has conveniently inconvenient amnesia (another noir trope), but with Tim’s dad’s name on the inside of his cap, it sparks off a chase across the region to discover what truly happened.

Even for a movie with ninja frogs and fire-breathing dragons, it goes some places you just won’t see coming---for better or worse.

First and foremost, even though there’s a number of times where it’s a little obvious that actor Justice Smith is talking to an invisible co-star, it’s really surprising how much emotional depth is plumbed from the first half of Detective Pikachu. There’s real pathos and a sense of emotional conflict within Tim as he confronts the loss of his father, who effectively abandoned Tim to his grandmother as he poured himself into work. Smith conveys this through some of his best acting, whether he’s putting up walls between him and Ken Watanabe’s police chief character or Reynold’s Pikachu.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Detective Pikachu review without some comment on Reynolds' performance. Though it isn’t the extra hardboiled Bronx accent of the modestly successful Detective Pikachu 3DS game, Reynolds manages to swerve between a PG Deadpool riff and his own brand of an emotionally tortured pocket monster. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud cracks, but there were just as many that felt like an editor had asked for jokes for the sake of more jokes. The Lego Movie this ain’t, but there are enough comedic throughlines that pay off so that you can comfortably call this a family comedy rather than a kids movie. All the same, the chemistry that he and Smith’s Tim pull off despite likely never even being in the same room works wonders.

Detective Pikachu begins to amble into its second half as the plot loses itself. In a world where Avengers: Endgame fans are expected to have seen at least most of the preceding movies, the back half of Detective Pikachu feels like we’re missing a few puzzle pieces. Actress Kathryn Newton starts out strong as a plucky news intern hoping to crack the case surrounding Tim’s dad, and while her Psyduck companion is a highlight of the film, she gets pushed to the side too quickly to effectively resolve some threads. There are entire mysteries that get started and solved in the span of a couple of minutes thanks to a handy flashback or hologram, and the final confrontation between the ultimate villain and our heroes is laced with some plot holes so big they threaten to rip apart my understanding of the Pokémon universe's metaphysical nature, and we’re talking beyond Ash being brought back to life with Pikachu’s tears. The accessibility that the first act achieves in spades certainly gets overshadowed, and even Pokémon fans may get lost in the climax, but it’s ultimately about the thrill ride.

The savior here, as it is throughout this whole movie, is seeing pokémon act as a real part of the world, and all the warm nostalgia that carries. While Detective Pikachu may push the boundaries of what even diehard Pokémon fans can reasonably keep up with, it never forgets that its main mission is illustrating a fantasy world that only feels just the slightest bit out of reach. It's a world where someone could, in fact, go from sleeping in a Pikachu bed surrounded by poké-battle posters, to working a dead-end job selling insurance, and back to a meaningful relationship with a sentient ball of fuzz. Though Detective Pikachu may be more of a kids film than I hoped for, the film wins by finding the heart of the video game.

Detective Pikachu’s dancing goes with everything

Joseph Knoop — Wed, 08 May 2019 16:52:39 +0000

Detective Pikachu is almost here, and Pokémon fans are being treated to a feature-length meme.

A spiking dancing Pikachu meme began on Tuesday when a Twitter account named @InspectrPikachu advertised “POKÉMON Detective Pikachu -- FULL MOVIE.” That account was retweeted by Detective Pikachu star Ryan Reynolds, who tagged the official Detective Pikachu account.

https://twitter.com/VancityReynolds/status/1125886792627118080

It turns out the “leak” was just a cleverly done marketing stunt by Warner Bros. and the Detective Pikachu team. The video starts off convincingly enough with a short montage of actor Justice Smith walking around the pokémon-filled Ryme City but quickly segues into an hour-and-a-half of Pikachu dancing his heart out to an '80s-esque synth beat.

https://youtu.be/tAA_yWX8ycQ

It’s a fun little homage to that infamous 1988 Crystal Light National Aerobics Championship dance, but now folks are applying it to darn near anything with a 4/4 beat.

https://twitter.com/WheelchairG1993/status/1125954490379665408

https://twitter.com/CoderColin/status/1125922571529146369

https://twitter.com/loudestdork/status/1125959733733539840

Of course, there's this gem that riffs on another '80s classic: "Take on Me" by A-ha.

https://twitter.com/zigstripes/status/1125945150830546944

There's also just a ton of western and Korean pop music being layered over Pikachu, and we're not complaining.

https://twitter.com/cocokiitie/status/1125996247888879616

https://twitter.com/betterbettersix/status/1125946400410349568

https://twitter.com/dpikachudancing/status/1126063626513555456

https://twitter.com/cappnkiiwii/status/1125999743971127298

https://twitter.com/cametek/status/1126060359683457025

https://twitter.com/FiImFeed/status/1126133775379857409

https://twitter.com/atzhjoong/status/1126085393487556608

https://twitter.com/DiamondTaem/status/1126130936767062017

Here's Pikachu dancing to the theme song from Devil May Cry 5.

https://twitter.com/Pauvlychenko/status/1126077648575377408

https://twitter.com/heathdwilliams/status/1126134699414511618

https://twitter.com/se_ungyouns/status/1126105738739249153

https://twitter.com/jaljayobaby/status/1126045443169742849

https://twitter.com/KhakiBlueSocks/status/1125980040389451776

Detective Pikachu is out on Thursday so make sure to check out Daily Dot’s review, plus our favorite Pokémon memes. If you're a Pokémon Go fan, you also won't want to miss out on the movie tie-in event.

READ MORE:

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Ryan Reynolds goes scary deep into method acting for ‘Detective Pikachu’

Joseph Knoop — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 17:53:37 +0000

If Daniel Day-Lewis can spend an entire film shoot in a wheelchair, then who says Ryan Reynolds can’t perform similar feats of method acting for the upcoming Detective Pikachu? That’s precisely what the comedic actor says he did in a new promotional bit for the Pokémon family film.

Also, we're apparently getting a new trailer on Tuesday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3_LgIDqOwo

“I lived it, I breathed it, I became the character, I spent the entire year as Detective Pikachu,” Reynolds said in the clip.

“Now as many of you know, I vanish into my roles,” Reynolds continued. “I was on my way to pick up my daughters from school when I heard that I got the role. Well, I didn’t show up at school, because Detective Pikachu, he doesn’t know who those girls are. Who are they?”

Reynolds' real-world wife, actress Blake Lively, then appears.

“They’re our daughters,” Lively said flatly. “He just left them.”

Reynolds is, of course, emulating the infamous method acting process that has sent legendary actors like Day-Lewis and Christian Bale into some of their most transformative roles. In The Machinist, Bale lost more than 62 pounds to become the titular emaciated machine worker.

Reynolds claims he lived as Detective Pikachu’s 1-foot tall height and tried to lose 182 pounds before doctors intervened.

“He didn’t even change his voice,” Lively said. “It just sounds like him.”

Reynolds seems unperturbed by his wife’s observation.

“The point is, my daughters, they may never see their dad again, but you can be damn sure that when they’re looking up at that big screen this summer that they’re seeing Detective Pikachu,” Reynolds said.

“We’re not going,” Lively said.

Detective Pikachu stars Reynolds as the titular investigator, a different incarnation of the world-famous electric mouse Pokémon. The movie will take place in Rhyme City, a fictional locale populated by both humans and countless Pokémon living in relative harmony. The trailer has already sparked off some great memes, including the angry Jigglypuff. The film, scheduled to debut on May 10, is based on a Nintendo 3DS game series starring a similarly gruff Pikachu.

According to Reynolds on Twitter, we're getting a new trailer for Detective Pikachu tomorrow, so come back then for all the latest details.

Alex Jones as Detective Pikachu is extremely apt

Nahila Bonfiglio — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 16:41:58 +0000

Monday's release of the trailer for Detective Pikachu, starring Ryan Reynolds as everyone's favorite fictitious rodent, was met with mixed reactions online. Based on a 2016 Nintendo DS game, the trailer teases a film that just might manage to pull off a video game adaptation with the right combination of humor and intrigue.

Mid-afternoon on Monday, hours after the trailer dropped, Twitter user @NoShape_ posted his own take on the popular teaser, with Danny DeVito as Pikachu.

His tweet was quickly followed by a YouTuber who goes by Dolan Dark, who Tuesday uploaded a different version of the trailer, in which Pikachu is voiced by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Weirdly, they were both kind of spot-on.

https://twitter.com/NoShape_/status/1062104336539545600

Pikachu rambles aimlessly in the DeVito version of the trailer, using clips from FX's It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, in which DeVito plays Frank Reynolds, the reprehensible father of Dee and Dennis.

"I need some trash to plug up the cut," DeVit-achu explains to a baffled Tim Goodman, played by Justice Smith, before launching into a tirade on eating cat food that has to be experienced to be understood. @NoShape_ manages to keep Pikachu's movements and mouth surprisingly synched with DeVito's off-kilter delivery.

The Alex Jones video struggles more to synch lips with words, but Jones's rage-filled tirades somehow fit Pikachu like a tiny, rubber-insulated glove.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h37A9Qjxsvo

"I'm animated, I'm a throwback, I'm here," an enraged sounding Pikachu rants at Goodman. "I'm an explorer. I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs gay!"

"I like women, not men and if I liked men I'd be proud of it," Pikachu growls at Mister Mime toward the end of the 44-second trailer. "I'd have a lot of them, but I ain't never been in bed with no man."

You've never seen Pikachu like this.

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The angry Jigglypuff in ‘Detective Pikachu’ is already a meme

Brittany Vincent — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 00:38:02 +0000

Fans finally got their first look at the live-action Pokémon movie, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, and Monday's trailer has blown up the internet and offered up several memes.

Starring Ryan Reynolds as everyone's favorite electric mouse detective, it follows a talking Pikachu that's helping a young man named Tim Goodman get to the bottom of where his private eye father has disappeared to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roy4o4tqQM

As expected, people have had varied reactions to the other Pokémon in the upcoming movie, and many aren't taking too kindly to them. Some describe them as "nightmare fuel," or "unforgivable," like the angry Jigglypuff seen in a coffee shop in the movie's first full-length trailer.

But many are digging it, too.

https://twitter.com/shofu/status/1062029345873522688

Funnily enough, this mad little pink puffball is, as Twitter user @Isirikul sums it up, a mood. Many are embracing the weirdly realistic Jigglypuff that seems mad.

https://twitter.com/lsirikul/status/1062038095841812481

https://twitter.com/blankcheckpod/status/1062054100404224001

https://twitter.com/EscoBlades/status/1062038547526488064

https://twitter.com/RANK10YGO/status/1062038298493939712

People love to meme this little furry Jigglypuff up---and the film isn't out until 2019.

https://twitter.com/SaraSorrentino/status/1062035709471662082

https://twitter.com/DitzyFlama/status/1062041798833430528

https://twitter.com/ChrisPJGodfrey/status/1062039947295813637

It's even bringing back some of our favorite memes, like this ol' standby from A Star is Born, the "take another look at you" meme that we know and love. Here Jigglypuff sings alongside Bradley Cooper.

https://twitter.com/WhitneyM02/status/1062051694710833152

https://twitter.com/reverendtoller/status/1062047305207996416

Let's be honest---the movie doesn't look great. But at the very least, it's delivering in terms of hot and fresh new meme content. This Jigglypuff is still just as creepy and weird as the rest of the CG monsters, but it's at least providing plenty of laughs.

Until the film hits theaters, you've got plenty of time to play the original 3DS game and crack the case.

Detective Pikachu for Nintendo 3DS is colorful, but not a knockout

Chris Reed — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 19:53:52 +0000

Even after the hours I spent playing Detective Pikachu, I still haven’t found peace with the title character’s voice in this game. Pikachu has many lines of spoken dialog, and he sounds, disturbingly, like an adult man. He sounds like a Brooklyn plumber with an affinity for booze and cigarettes.

The other pokémon have normal, often cutesy voices. Even the other Pikachu you encounter sound as adorable as ever. But Detective Pikachu is the one who accompanies you through the adventure. And he sounds like Artie Lange.

If it isn't already obvious, Detective Pikachu isn’t your typical Pokémon game. It’s not an RPG. You can’t battle other trainers or try to “catch ‘em all.” This is a story-driven adventure game. Its narrative is so front-and-center that it’s being turned into a movie (with Ryan Reynolds taking over Detective Pikachu’s voice).

The game takes place in Ryme City, a modern environment that’s just like ours, except that it’s filled with Pokémon. Pokémon walk down the street, hang from trees and fly through the air. They’re like animals, but smarter. Some of them, like the titular sleuth, have jobs and regularly interact with people. Thing is, no one can understand their language.

No one, except you. You play as Tim, a boy whose father has gone missing, so he comes to Ryme City to investigate. Tim’s dad works for a PI agency, and Detective Pikachu is his partner. When you meet, Pikachu is surprised you can understand him when he talks. In fact, he’s the only Pokémon you can understand, which means he acts as your translator for the rest of the game. You quickly team up with the gravelly voiced gumshoe and set off to find your father.

Thus begins a narrative-driven adventure that tasks you with solving one mystery after another on your way to finding your dad and figuring out why some Pokémon are going berserk. The actual gameplay revolves around talking to people and Pokémon while searching for clues in the environment. To advance the story at certain points, you have to assemble the information you’ve collected by dragging icons around on the 3DS’s lower screen. Action scenes play out as quick-time events. Unfortunately, none of this is particularly exciting on its own.

What is exciting is the plot as it thickens. That’s the real drive here. While the gameplay drags, the plot does the heavy lifting of pulling players along.

It’s like a slower, more watered-down version of an Ace Attorney game. That's kind of a bummer, but also somewhat expected. Detective Pikachu tells one long story, while Ace Attorney cases move quickly with lots of twists and turns.

But if you can get on board with the gradual pace of Detective Pikachu, there’s plenty of enjoyment to wring out of it. The people you encounter tend to be dullards, but the Pokémon you find are often interesting. They come in all shapes and sizes, from giant floating orbs like Glailie to telepathic multi-brained creatures like Duosions.

The presentation is also fantastic, at least for a 3DS game. That’s somewhat faint praise considering the hardware is now seven years old. It's easy to forget how much better games look on more modern consoles once you start playing. Even so, to get the graphics looking as good as they do, developer Creatures Inc. had to forego the 3D effect.

While the narrative pace picks up as the game goes on, it drags along in the early hours. Making matters worse, Detective Pikachu doesn’t always respect your time. You’re usually on the hunt for a single clue or piece of information, but because there are often a dozen or more characters to chat up in each scene, you end up asking the same questions to a lot of folks who don’t have any answers.

In a better game, these characters would liven things up with quirky personalities. But all too often, they’re just boring people with nothing interesting to say. Much of Detective Pikachu feels like filler. As the story progresses, the typical Pokémon charm begins to emerge. If only it got there sooner.

I wish the makers of Detective Pikachu made more bold choices, especially early on. I wish they would have infused every scene with even more personality. But when the plot works, it works. Reading-age kids will probably enjoy it, as will Pokémon diehards. But for everyone else, other games offer more pleasures more quickly and more often. Sorry, Detective. Maybe your story will turn out better on the big screen.

Detective Pikachu is available March 23, 2018, for Nintendo 2DS/3DS.

Score: 3/5

Disclosure: Nintendo provided a copy of Detective Pikachu for this review.

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People are freaking out about Detective Pikachu’s weird adult voice

Gavia Baker-Whitelaw — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 17:10:09 +0000

The English-language trailer for Detective Pikachu is here, and it's opening people's eyes—and ears—to who Detective Pikachu actually is. Namely, an adorable pokemon with the unsettlingly deep voice of an adult man.

This weird combination will soon receive a film adaptation starring Ryan Reynolds (yes, Deadpool) as the title character. But for now, we just have the Nintendo 3DS game, released in 2016 in Japan and coming to North America on March 23. If you haven't heard the voice before, this trailer is a uniquely bizarre experience. It's a childlike CGI animation with Pikachu as a jovial Sherlock Holmes, and it's making people feel very uncomfortable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuwqoTe836s

While Nintendo didn't manage to hire Danny DeVito to play Pikachu, his voice is still causing a wave of freakouts.

https://twitter.com/ministired/status/966861300600012800

https://twitter.com/pastel_doge/status/966976697504428033

Maybe this game will become a cult hit in the U.S., but it's still a mystery why Hollywood decided this was the best idea for a live-action Pokémon movie. Rather than making a charming children's fantasy adventure, we're getting what sounds like the 2010s version of the live-action Super Mario movie... starring Ryan Reynolds as a lovable cartoon rodent. Isn't art wonderful?

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Thousands of gamers want Danny DeVito to be the voice of Pikachu

[email protected] — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 17:54:33 +0000

Nintendo recently announced their plans to release a video game called Detective Pikachu, in which gamers would play as the iconic Pokémon, donning a Sherlock Holmes hat and looking for clues to solve mysteries within the Pokémon universe.

It’s yet unknown if the game will be getting a release date in the United States, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from petitioning Nintendo to get Danny DeVito to voice the electrified creature for an English-language version of the game.

https://twitter.com/AggroWill/status/692825782461284353

The petition, spearheaded by a Sairith Aramor, has since received some 20,000 signatures. “There are a number of us that feel as though Danny DeVito would be a prime fit for the voice acting role of the Detective Pikachu,” Aramor stated. “We want to make this happen.”

Honestly, DeVito would be outstanding. Much like Pikachu, he’s adorable, funny, and something of a ticking time bomb (at least the character he portrays in It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is). Seriously, imagine the Pikachu we’ve come to know and love, able to speak like a human with a voice full of charm, wit and sardonic humor?

All we can hope is that this petition—along with the pretty clever hashtag #DannyDeVitochu—will make its way to Nintendo, so they can turn this fever dream into a reality.

Photo via IGN/YouTube, Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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