Movie Critics - The Panel: Blue Times Two

Our story begins with an inspiring male voiced narrator taking us into the ancient past, which probably means we aren't going to be seeing very much of it at all. But at least there is war, and truly the only war Pokémon has ever truly been about: Red Version versus Green Version. The original Japanese games are going to all-out war so that they can prove their superiority over one another. Lucario, being a blue anthropomorphic creature, decides having a war is a bad idea and runs around being attacked by both sides. He contacts his furry friend Sonic the Hedgehog (or at least his old voice actor) and is blinded. With the war beginning, Sonic decides to spin-dash his way to the tree of life to activate a Treus-Ex-Machina. Then all of a sudden we are reading from a storybook with a completely different narrator; there isn't any consistency at all! But after the intro credits the standard narrator returns.

After a quick dress-up, we get our intro song battle where Pikachu actually shocks a Breloom to death. Then a knight with a Weavile decides to show a Tropius it doesn't need that 4x weakness and just Shadow Balls it to death. It starts getting really montage-y here but essentially Ash beats said knight and their Weavile in the finals. Oh but it's a girl actually because girls have to be like May and wear really dumb puffy dresses.

Basically knight girl Kidd sends her two Weavile to tag Mew, which has decided it doesn't want to hang around any more trees/islands/trucks near the port and more with Pikachu and the gang. Icy Wind gets freeze chances now and always freezes. Meanwhile Lucario unfreezes from crystal rod purgatory and gets some big post-traumatic stress disorder. Essentially this results in Pikachu and Meowth disappearing with Mew (yay!) and Lucario facing the biggest antagonist of the film, his own self-doubt about Sonic the Hedgehog. So one boring travel sequence later we get to the tree of life and the Regi's decide it's time to invade a film that already has more than enough featured Pokémon. Jessie and James get attacked by tentacle gel monsters that sprout from the rocks and I don't know why. At least something in these films have decided Team Rocket serve no purpose. Glowing gems that turn into tentacle abductors that sometimes look like Pokémon are all we have really for combat here. When the Regi's invade, they essentially just run the other way. Ok so there isn't much combat here at this point either. Ash and Lucario believe in the aura as it is the true way; just remember kids, buy the new Pokémon games as well as all the toys!

I'm actually afraid somebody has spliced the final conversation with Lucario and his master to make it a shipping conversation between Lucario and Sonic the Hedgehog. It exists somewhere out there on the internet.

May the aura be with you.

There are two types of films in this series, those that fulfill their promise of action, and those that do not.

Here is how you bring promise to a film: have a group of crazy evil pirates with more technology than necessary for whatever bit of plunder that they desire. Sadly, their leader Phantom is capable of anything it seems. Once the Manaphy Egg is caught the dashing Pokémon Ranger decides that humans can be awesome in Pokémon films and escapes. There is some good comedy here with Jack Walker and his escapades, proving that all the grunts truly have no real career prospects. We then cut to Ash and company walking aimlessly, like they always do. So they end up joining a circus on its tour and I press fast forward because this doesn't look like the kind of circus where lions end up attacking the clown car. Basically, the next big action scene is another chase with the Pokémon Pirate and Pokémon Ranger. This is the only Pokémon film so far where the humans have done much more than the Pokémon. Even Max displays some competency with stopping the pirates from assaulting his sister. The next chase is within the trailer versus the pirates in their helicopters. You heard that right—pirates carry out their mission for glory and plunder on helicopters. The middle half of this film is basically a mini vacation, so if we cut down the film to only action scenes we'd have a regular anime episode worth of content.

The lack of battles so far has been quite pathetic; Phantom himself has no notable powerhouses. He has a Chatot that is always with him, as well as a Pinsir and Parasect. His second in command uses a Beedrill. There was so much more potential here for pirate-themed Pokémon but we never get it.

The ending is essentially Titanic where Ash allows May to escape with Manaphy while he puts in the last magic crystal. I suppose this is action too because there is a lot of running and swimming. Instead of drowning like we'd all hope he'd do, Ash turns Super Saiyan, Kyogre decides it wants more screen time than Groudon got in its film, and every water Pokémon in the world teams up on Phantom. Happy ending.