Review of Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!
After the bunch of generic movies that the franchise was bringing (especially XY's), this film felt like a breath of fresh air, a necessary change and an interesting experience. Even so, it could have been handled much better. At first, the film was very ambitious, trying to mix classic elements with new elements in a single story with the classic theme of "chosen by the legendary", which is not bad, but that same ambition made the development of the film was very inconsistent: they added key elements of the first season, such as the way Ash and Pikachu became friends, Caterpie's capture and subsequent release andthe abandoned Charmander, beautiful scenes that contributed to Ash development, but didn't impact as they intended to do (speaking from the perspective of the new generations of fans, which is the main audience to which the film aimed). In addition, the new elements were incorporated in a very superficial way, resulting in a very hasty plot, which handled too much issues: Cross as an antithesis of Ash, Verity and Sorrel, even the same legend of "chosen by Ho-Oh", the old man who wrote the book and Marshadow as an evil being and his world of illusion were treated very superficially. While the subplots were placed "just because", the main plot was developed inconsistently.
The plot is not the only thing that remained half developed, the characters too:
-Both Verity and Sorrel, although they are not the most original characters in the world, they are charismatic and have interesting motivations, respectively: wanting to show your real value and being a professor due to a traumatic experience that made you see things from a broader perspective, each one was introduced with quite remarkable personalities, but once they joined to Ash, all that disappeared, and they went into the background in such a blatant way that it's offensive, giving the feeling of wanting to see more of them.
-Cross and Marshadow were only used as a plot device. The first as the typical edgelord who treats everyone badly, considers that everything is brute force and friendship is useless but without the redemption that differentiates him from others like Paul and Trip, who in the end was the one who unleashed the chaos due to his imprudence. The second as the evil entity that has to stop our characters "just because", if there is a real reason for its participation, this was not very clear or was never explained properly.
-On the other hand we have the same Ash as always, but due to the focus they gave him, his development as a newly initiated Trainer was better appreciated, in the best way that has been seen in the franchise so far, as well as his relationship with Pikachu... But yes, the way he "revived" was one of the most cheeky deus ex machina of all the anime, and don't tell me it was Ho-Oh because he was not present and the Rainbow Wing had disintegrated.
In short: very ambitious plot, mixing new and old elements in a very superficial way, focusing on some things and leaving aside many others, hasty development and interesting characters but very badly used. As I said at the beginning, it was a renewed experience with respect to the last films, and it was pleasant to see, but it doesn't prevent that it could have been better.