POKEMON: THE FIRST MOVIE aka POCKET MONSTERS THE MOVIE: MEWTWO STRIKES BACK. (1998) BASED ON CHARACTERS CREATED BY SATOSHI TAJIRI IN 1995. DIRECTED BY KUNIHIKO YUGAMA.
ENGLISH VOICE ACTORS: VERONICA TAYLOR AS ASH, IKUE OTANI AS PIKACHU, RACHAEL LILLIS AS MISTY/JESSIE AND ERIC STUART AS BROCK/JAMES.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. © (WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HER KIDS...!)
I have a panel of experts standing by to assist me with the writing of this review. They're my kids (for the purpose of this exercise they shall be known as 'Mr. Boy' and 'Mr. Boy for Girls, a division of Mr. Boy...!') and they're very particular about me getting my facts straight.
If I had my way, I'd just gabble on for a few pages about the cuddly yellowness and yellow cuddliness of Pikachu, my favourite Pokemon and, apparently, the Pokemon most easily recognised by parents, who, I have it on good authority, call every Pokemon 'Pikachu.'
In fact, I know a young lady who works in a toystore and she has parents coming in to the shop every day now looking to buy Pokemon merchandise for their kids for Christmas. The tremendous upsurge in popularity of the iconic brand is obviously due to the 'Pokemon Go' phenomenon that caught on like wildfire over the summer of 2016. No matter what Pokemon-related item this lady's hand lands on, she's got the parents shrieking:
'No, no, I said I want a Pokemon, the yellow one, you know the yellow one...?'
Yep, the yellow one is called Pokemon, haha.
Anyway, I'm under strict instructions to talk about the actual plot of the movie and not to just ramble on ad infinitum about how adorable Pikachu is, the fat little ball of cuddly sunshine that he is. As I'm merely a parent of Pokemon-obsessed kids and not an actual expert like my smart-ass offspring, I can only write about what I see in 'mammy' terms and not in very specialised techie animé language, haha, but I enjoyed the movie and it wasn't too technical so here's the way I see it, folks.
Okay, so you probably already know that Pokemon have their human trainers and they're liable to get very attached to each other, which is lovely to see. Now, in this film, a sort of supersoldier Pokemon called Mewtwo is created from the fossilised eyelash of the legendary rare Pokemon known as Mew.
Unwilling to be a pawn in the game of Giovanni, leader of the evil Team Rocket and the devious brains behind the cloning, Mewtwo plans revenge against humanity in general...
To this end, he anonymously invites the world's greatest Pokemon trainers and their Pokemon to battle with him at a place called New Island. Cue Ash, Misty and Brock and their little entourage of adorable Pokemon, Pikachu, Charizard, Togepi (I call him the Easter Egg Pokemon because he looks like one!) Onyx and Vulpix, all trotting off excitedly in response to the mysterious challenge.
Mewtwo's cunning plan is to clone all the nice, good Pokemon into some sort of an unholy army of the night which he himself would lead, after which I'm pretty sure he plans to do away with the original Pokemon and, erm, maybe wipe out humanity forever as well...? I'm probably right here. After all, everybody always wants to wipe out humanity...!
Mewtwo, who actually has a heart under all the outward belligerence, makes the clones battle the originals first, to some tearjerking music and with some heartbreaking results which I'm sworn to keep secret, under pain of being pummelled half to death by the two tons of stuffed Pikachus which we keep in the house for emergencies. You'd be surprised how often we've actually needed these...!
My little yellow friend is the undoubted star of the show with his pluckiness, unswerving loyalty to his trainer Ash and generosity of spirit. You'll cry your eyes out when you see just how much he loves Ash. Me personally, I cried buckets, but then I love, love, love that little yellow furball.
Oh, and I've been instructed to add in that when Pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum turns his baseball cap backwards in that determined fashion, this means that he means business and shit is gonna go down, see?
I'm also supposed to mention that my kids have actually met Veronica Taylor, the voice of Ash, at an animé convention and had a lovely chat with her about the franchise before coming away with a signed photograph of her for keepsies, so feel free to turn pea-green with jealousy,
y'all...!
This heartwarming and visually stunning film is available now on Blu-Ray/DVD/Steelbook, courtesy of MANGA UK and ANIMATSU. It comes in a collection of three Pokemon movies actually, the other two films being POKEMON THE MOVIE: 2000- THE POWER OF ONE from 1999 and POKEMON 3: THE MOVIE- SPELL OF THE UNKNOWN from 2000. It's a great little trio of movies, to be sure, folks.
The colour and clarity of the Blu-Ray is just incredible to watch and the sound is crystal clear, which is especially important as a song seems to break out every few minutes, haha. Don't panic, it's not a musical, I repeat, this is not a musical...! God, how I (generally) loathe musicals. With certain notable exceptions, of course.
This gorgeous collection will make the perfect Christmas present for the Pokemon fan in your life. POKEMON GO may have come and gone, if you'll excuse the pun, but Pokemon the phenomenon is forever. The trio of movies has the official seal of approval of Mr. Boy and Mr. Boy For Girls (a division of Mr. Boy) which, as they think they're such experts, is really saying something...!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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