A live-action Pokemon movie is the greatest dream of my 10-year-old self. What Detective Pikachu achieves visually in bringing pocket monsters to the real world is absolutely stunning. The rest of the film, however, is a mess.

Detective Pikachu follows Tim Goodman played by Justice Smith, a rural kid who travels to Ryme City after his father’s apparent murder. Upon encountering a mysteriously vocal Pikachu, Tim reluctantly joins forces with the furry detective to solve the mystery of his father’s death. Plus find the source of a craze-inducing serum. And figure out who is experimenting on Pokemon and why.

For me, the real mystery in Detective Pikachu is how to keep all the various objectives in order. And while the Pokemon look fantastic and organic in each scene, it’s the actors that feel out of place; the result of an unfortunate combination of lazy writing and sub-par acting.

And it’s a shame that Detective Pikachu has to dance around controversial aspects of Pokemon, outlawing Pokemon battles and using the iconic pokeball only once in the whole movie.

Really, the only component  that keeps Detective Pikachu tolerable is Ryan Reynolds, who makes his unusual casting for Pikachu work to the best of his ability. An ability, by the way, that is heavily and irrationally restrained by a PG rating.

How the film ends serves this independent albeit convoluted story well, but ruins the film’s biggest selling point for future Detective Pikachu productions. So unless significantly better writers get involved, pikaplease stop.

 Acting and Casting - 0 | Visual Effects and Editing - 2 | Story and Message - 0 | Entertainment Value - 1 | Music Score and Soundtrack - 0 | Reviewer's Preference - 0 | What does this mean?