Review of Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!

So I happened to stumble into another nostalgic beartrap; well not all that nostalgic, since I do still play the games regularly, but as far as the anime goes, I've been mostly disinterested in most things Pokémon since Sinnoh I guess. Now, since gen VI probably, Gamefreak has seemingly grown progressively more aware of us "geezers", who never could quite put down the game boy and say goodbye to our PG-13 digital armies of "dog fighting"-animals. Next to the mega stones, alolan forms and 3DS re-releases of classic games, this movie is another example of this. Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You is in alot of ways a remake of the original series; a decision, that was met with both praise and criticism from the "gen-wunner"-fan base. Some of them welcomed the possibility of a remake, even if not completely faithful, others just couldn't live with the changes, the film attempted to make. Me, I was as already explained in the intro, initially indiffirent to the movie's existence, but now that I've seen it, I'd honestly dare saying, that (apart from some irritating choices made in the climax of the movie) it is one of the better Pokémon films, if not the best one yet. Let me elaborate;

Story (☆):
There's alot of re-using of ideas from the source material, but honestly I'd have to say, the writers made their homework. I'm generally not a fan of remaking and re-hashing, but what we get in this movie is pretty well structured and the source material they chose patches together the movie neatly. The premise is basically classic Pokémon; Ash Ketchum is now 10 and can leave his mom and embark on an adventure capturing odd animals with weird abilities, making them fight, collecting badges and trying to become the very best, like noone ever was. Now what the movie did well, is to choose just the right aspects of this journey to make it compelling. The episodes they picked to remake and eventually lead into a new story find a common ground in a story about (big shock) friendship and trust. It's not the most original concept, not new to Pokémon or the genre it is a part of, but it is handled well.

Characters (☆):
Common complaint about the Pokémon anime is, how bland the characters are and to some degree this is the case in this movie as well. The new side characters serve mostly as plot devices, the antagonist is the classic trainer, who only wants power and considers companionship with his Pokémon unnecessary and Team Rocket are ultimately reduced to comic relief cameos; but at the core of it all, you do have Ash and his Pokémon and their character arcs. Fair enough; alot of people probably won't be able to seperate this Ash from his series' counterpart; the series Ash being way too often the dimwited over-enthusiastic shounen hero, who learns lessons only to forget them within the next 10 episodes, but if you manage to seperate this Ash from that Ash, you might not be as dissapointed in him after all. Well, there's always the classic complaints you can make; "Why is he using, that Pokémon against that Pokémon?" or "Why is he using that attack on that Pokémon", but then again you can't really apply your quantitative experience from the video games in the more layered and less predictable fighting mechanics of the anime. Not to mention this is an Ash with far less experience, then the series' one, so mistakes are always a possibility.

Art (☆☆):
Not much to complain about here; it's colourful and pleasing to the eye. The artstyle is typical Pokémon movie-artstyle with designs to appeal to all ages, especially the younger demographic. The fights are well choreographed, dynamic and immersive. All in all it's pleasing to the eye.

Soundtrack (☆):
It's funny, but even though I consider myself a big music nerd, I never really dissect anime soundtrack too much. I can always spot a brilliant soundtrack and voice acting and differentiate it from a complete travesty, but I never go too deep into it (Not that it even affects my overall enjoyment of the anime too much). With that said; Pokémon was fine; decent voice acting, soundtrack you would expect, nothing was off.

Final Verdict:
As stated in the introduction; I think it's well put together and thoughtout and tells a cohesive story. Ash and his Pokémon are surprisingly the stars of the show with decent character arcs. It's a decent film, but nothing we really needed and as a remake, nothing that does something unexpected, but it is a competent product alltogether. 5/10

Rating system:

As seen above, I use a star system (symbols I have stolen from Yu-Gi-Oh!'s entries here on MAL) to rate the series/movie in terms of four categories, which can indicate its quality. Those ratings do affect the final score I give the series/movie, but I do not use a mathematical method to assign the score. Ultimately I weight the final ratings by considering the stars given. I do not consider the categories to be equivalent and value a good story and characters over good art or a cathcy soundtrack. As far as the stars given go, I use a four stage scale:
(-) - bad, a series/movie is terrible in this category
(☆) - okay, it's fine, tolerable, but likely nothing special
(☆☆) - good, it's good, but may have flaws or isn't quite among the best I've seen in the category
(☆☆☆) - great, the best rating I can give, when it's truely remarkable in the category