Pokemon: The Movie 2000 * out of * * * * Rated G
Around the end of 1998, a Japanese cartoon came to the USA television, and really wasn't that big. In fact not many people even knew what Pokemon was, but in 1999 it hit big with kids and adults alike, and became one of the biggest franchises and merchandise seller of all time. In fact it even spawned a big screen adventure Pokemon: The First Movie which for what it was, wasn't all that bad. It grossed $31 million in its opening weekend, and went on to make almost $90 million. Fans thought it was great and now is a second movie in the Pokemon craze, "Pokemon: The Movie 2000" which is far inferior to the original animated movie.
First up is the plot, which there really isn't much of, in fact the plot what there is: A bad guy trying to destroy the ancient never before seen pokemon, Lugia, is about it, except the fact that Ash Kethcum the worlds best pokemon trainer must try and stop him before he destroys this one pokemon forever. Well there you go, of course Ash is followed by his friends Misty, Brock, Gary and his pokemon friends, Pikachu, Squirtle, Charizard, the usual. Even though the first movie wasn't a great film, it was definately an enjoyable well-made movie with an actual thin storyline. This new movie however is nothing but garbage, there is nothing good to it storywise, and its only good thing comes from some plush animation and colors.
Compared to the first film, this movie is awfully bland, from its opening titles, to the end titles it tries its best to work, but fails miserably at every corner. The characters are 1-dimensional, the story thin as chicken broth, and the writing very lame. Even the so called action scenes are extremely lame, and falls before it even gets a chance to go. The voices even aren't that good and almost feels like the stars don't want to be there, like they can tell that this is an extremel bad movie. Which it certainly is.
The film has one thing going for it and that is the animation, although not up to Disney standards, it is still very good with some interesting CGI's and very colorful animation, the colors jump out at you very fast, and seem very nicely put on film. Why a film this bad got such a good treatment with its animation is still a question to be answered, hopefully Pokemon 3 next year will be much better than this trash. For now watch the first one. Its much much better.
Reviewed by Brandon Herring http://us.imdb.com/ReviewsBy?Brandon+Herring
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