Directed by Rob Letterman

Starring: Justice Smith, Ryan Reynolds, Kathryn Newton, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy

Oh my god Detective Pikachu wasn’t trash. It was good, I can’t believe I saw a good movie tonight. The initial trailer for it wasn’t so hot, but I think it had us all a little interested. An actual live action Pokemon movie! Then all the other marketing made it look worse, and worse, and worse. Some dry looking dumb story about a missing dad and a talking pokemon. And I was sure that Ryan Reynolds, whose voice to me seemed inseparable from his popular role as Deadpool, was the absolute wrong choice for the cutesy Pikachu. Now that I’ve seen it, he was the absolute right one. For anyone walking into this movie expecting the worst, the opening scene with a cubone will be enough to win you over. So often movies like this are destined to be wastes of time leeching off unbeatable franchises. The surprise here is that there was an actual script. One with funny and smart dialogue, and hilarious one liners, and a likeable lead to make us care about some of the later scenes. It works.

It takes place in Ryme city, a new age metropolis where for the first time ever humans and pokemon coexist. Thanks to Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy) who built it on the pretense of having the two live peacefully together. We see a Machamp directing traffic around a snoozing Snorlax who has taken up half the street. Squirtles help the local fireman put out fires. It’s immediate the people who made this care about world building. There are endless (and usually very funny) nods to all the unique abilities of so many pokemon, and how they play it off in everyday life is a lot of the fun to be had. A jigglypuff is singing at a local bar, and the patron in front of her is passed out. I mean this is just so great to see.

Justice Smith is Tim Goodman, who’s introduced in that cubone scene I mentioned earlier. I won’t spoil it. He likes to be alone, and clearly has attachment issues. A lot is conveyed in some rather poor flashbacks. Eh, you take what you can get. Tim’s mom passed away when he was very young. He’s 21 now, he checks his phone. 5 voicemails from the police department.

He goes in. He’s met by Lt. Yoshida (Ken Watanabe), who worked with and knew his father. The news is grim, he tells Tim his dad is dead. The very opening scene had shown a car racing from a laboratory, and a pissed off Mewtwo destroying it. Tim’s dad was in that car. He was a detective, so we know he must have found something he shouldn’t have.

Tim takes the news easily, shrugs off Yoshida’s help, and goes to his dad’s place to clean it out. They did not have the best relationship. I think another bad flashback happens here, but Tim accidentally discovers a chemical that emits purple smoke, and makes the monkey like pokemon outside his window lose their minds into violence. Pikachu is in the apartment too, and after threatening him with a stapler, Tim realizes he can talk and understand him. He thinks the chemical is making him hallucinate.

I think I have to mention that the visuals in this movie are so on point that I always believed Pikachu was there. Even as I was aware I was looking at CGI I was happy that it looked good, sometimes great, and often wonderful. The expressions and gestures of the pokemon are so very clever and perfectly done that they each have their own look and feel. I thought a lot about Yoda, and how as just a puppet, his features mirrored that of our own. So too, did Reynold’s Pikachu. Am I really saying this?!

And Reynolds found the perfect tone to play it all. Movies like this might be tempted to shove adult jokes but keep their story for kids, or be so childish that none of it is funny. But the makers of Detective Pikachu made a good comedy for just about everyone, and so Reynolds was the perfect choice. And somehow, the adorable facial features of the electric rat did not once contradict the sardonic voice of Ryan. They worked in absolute harmony. I never once thought about Deadpool.

Pikachu wears a sleuthing cap like Sherlock, which has Tim’s dad’s address underneath it. He was his dad’s detective partner. After coming to terms that he’s actually hearing him speak English (no one else can), Tim works alongside Pikachu to solve this mystery. Now we have a noir caper.

I won’t go into the details of the mystery of Tim’s missing father, or Pikachu’s amnesia and how he got there. A lot of it is dumb, but a lot of it is fun finding out on your own. There are enough turns in the story to keep your attention (though some don’t work at all).

The director was Rob Letterman, whose resume would never make you guess he made this. But the real credit goes to the writers (Letterman was one of them) who wisely chose to make a light hearted comedy with a good premise, and knew to make it as funny as they possibly could. And to the visuals effects team, who gave us all these believable creatures onscreen and made it look just right. And Justice Smith, who I saw and liked in Jurassic World 2. Bad movie, but he had some of the funniest moments. I knew I would see him again in better films. His performance sold me, and he makes the heart warming scene with the bulbasaurs work so well. And Ryan Reynolds, who proved me wrong about his range, absolutely making a funny movie into something hilarious and memorable.

There are problems with Detective Pikachu. Of course, it’s a fucking pokemon movie. It loses when it takes its story too seriously, the extended scene in the lab with Greninjas lost me for a bit. It’s boring. And the end with the villain has the simplest solution. But I’ll tell ya, this is a good movie in the end. It even has a plucky unpaid intern who takes reporting way too seriously, with a stressed out Psyduck always with her, acting like a time bomb for everyone around it. I liked Kathryn Newton as Lucy, though I feel her part was truncated. And I dig the lighting of it all, which could have been so half assed, but actually looks like they took time to make some interesting choices. I also liked the whole idea of the barrier between people and pokemon being something more than words, and some cool scenes involving holograms that’s straight out of a great sci fi pic. The Mr. Mime encounter was also FAR better than you think it could be, and is so hilariously dark and amazing I can’t believe it made it into the final cut.

I can’t believe I liked Detective Pikachu. I can’t believe it was as enjoyable as it was. And mostly I can’t believe the amazing amazing amazing twist at the very end, which got me emotional, somehow. The whole time I was asking a certain question over and over. And of course, the answer was right in front of me