Review of Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!
Pokemon: I Choose You The Movie, is part reboot and part retelling of Ash and Pikachu's first meeting and journey. Some things are kept, but tweaked slightly (or a lot), and others are scrapped entirely in favor of entirely new ones. Notably Ash and Pikachu travel alone for fair bit before being joined by companions who are not Brock and Misty, nor is his rival/antagonist Gary Oak. The Team Rocket trio make sporadic and pointless appearances throughout the film, but never actually interact with Ash or anyone else. They do blast off a lot. Art: An over reliance on bad CG effects and underwhelming animation leftthis feeling nothing like a big budget Pokemon movie. Some things were decent, sometimes it wasn't half bad at all. But there was no consistency and some scenes/things were simply dreadful to look at.
Sound: Now while I've heard good things about the soundtrack for the original, the Dub has not been well recieved, and for very good reason. I hope to eventually experience the Japanese version, but for now, the Dub is all there is, and it is underwhelming at its best, and absoloutely terrible at its worst! Ash isn't great but the person playing him does a somwhat decent job that kinda grows on you I guess. His new travelling companions (whose names I cannot remember because they were only mentioned like twice and weren't very memorable for me) are decent and horrible respectively. The girl is okay, and sometimes even pretty good, the boy on the other hand was sooo terrible I cringed every time he opened his mouth. Terrible choice of voice actor, the voice didn't fit, the guy playing him sounded bored, and bad directing made sure that the character was chore to listen to, and that's a shame, since the character himslef wasn't actually that bad. Most of the pokemon were voiced TERRIBLY too, especially charmander, who went from being cute to annoying in terms of sound. Also Meowth (shiver) and James, bleh.
ONE OF THE WORST DUBS I've heard in recent years.
Characters:
New: If the boy companion had gotten a better VA he'd have been okay. Both had an interresting backstory and fairly likable personalities, though with so little development, the boy was mostly bland. The girl was actually decent and had a ton of potential, but since they were given so little development, it was hard to grow attached to them. The girl would have made a great protagonist on her own actually, but as it was, she was pushed aside in favor of Ash, and I doubt we'll ever get to see her confront her past, so didn't really get to contribute much. Neither of them did. The rival, while less obnoxious than the character he was based on, was underdeveloped, let off too easy for his crimes, and overall pretty bland. He also had no backstory whatsoever.
Old: Ash was frustrating. Sometimes he was the embodiment of his best self, others he was a huge jerk. Like he did and said some things that series Ash never would have, and I wanted to SMACK him!
Somtimes he was a competent trainer, and other times he was just as bad as counterpart/analog could be, but more of a jerk about it.
His relationship with his mom was terrible! Just what?
Delia Ketchum was never my fav character, but her portrayal in this film was just awful!
Professor Oak mangaged to have no real prescense what so ever. He was completely forgettable and also seemed to lack any sort of relationship with Ash, barely knowing who the kid was.
Team Rocket were terribly (well I guess Jessie was passable) voiced, and absoloutely pointless to the story. No interactions with anyone, no "genius" plans, just tiny cameos before pointless blastoffs.
Story: Maybe they could have pulled it off in a series of OVAs but in a movie, and a short one to boot, it was just too rushed. It wanted to be too many things at once and ended up shooting itself in the foot. Underwelming. It had its moments, kinda, but everything was just too rushed and too many scenes badly handled. So much potential, and they ruined it.
Can't say I enjoyed it. My recomendation is to skip the dub entirely, but if the japanese version becomes available, maybe check it out for posterity, I guess, but really I wish I'd just read a recap.