Pokémon Heroes * (out of 4)
Directed By: Jim Malone and Kunihiko Yuyama Written By: Jim Malone and Hideki Sonoda
Ash Ketchum: Veronica Taylor Misty/Jessie/Jigglypuff: Rachael Lillis Brock/James/Squirtle: Eric Stuart Meowth: Maddie Blaustein
Running Time: 1:10 Rated G (for mild thematic elements)
Reviewed by: Michael J. Gold
The fifth installment in the Pokemon adventures, "Pokemon Heroes" takes place in a town that appears to be based upon Venice with various canals and waterways running through out the city. The city hosts an annual pokemon water festival, which is why Ash (Veronica Taylor), Misty (Rachael Lillis) and Brock (Eric Stuart) have all arrived. Also in the city are comical bad guys Jessie, James and Meowth (Lillis, Stuart and Maddie Blaustein) as well as the more talented thieves Annie and Oakley.
Legend has it that the city is guarded by two new pokemon: Latios and Latias. In addition to being able to turn themselves invisible, these two stealth pokemon are also able to change their shape into that of humans, which is convenient since Latias likes to walk around town without drawing any attention. Annie and Oakley are trying to capture these two pokemon, however, and use a device that allows them to distinguish pokemon from humans. What would they have done if Latias had simply disguised herself as a different type of pokemon? In a world filled with different sorts of pokemon, wouldn't this actually be a better disguise than posing as a human?
Originally titled "Guardian Spirits of the Water Capital: Latias and Latios," I can only assume that the distributor must have felt that was too long a title for American children to handle and shortened the title down to "Pokemon Heroes." As with previous Pokemon movies, a short film called "Pika Pika Starlight Camp" was created to precede the feature, however, this short was not included in the American release. Debuting in this mini-adventure is a pre-evolved form of Wobbuffet, which in Japanese is named Sohnano.
This installment of the Pokemon series is heavy with CGI effects most of which are well done but poorly integrated into the film. Often times there is nothing but computer generated images on the screen, which serves as more of a distraction than the typical CGI background. Consider a scene where Ash is racing through the streets and alleyways and throughout the chase we are given long empty shots of movement though a computer generated city. These parts of the film feel more like we're playing a computer game than watching a film.
While pokemon fans will be delighted to see all their favorite characters returning for the film, few have anything to do or add to the story except Ash and the two new villains. A good editor could have easily cut this film from 70 minutes down to 45 and lost nothing in the effort. Overall, "Pokemon Heroes" is a lackluster effort that seems to have been rushed into production with more concern for how much money will be returned when the film reaches video and DVD then as to whether or not there was a well fleshed out story to tell.
--------------------------------- Gold Reviews: http://www.geocities.com/mjgold01
Get free movie reviews in your e-mail at: http://www.geocities.com/mjgold01
or by sending a blank e-mail to: goldreviews-subscribe@topica.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 34885 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1140423 X-RT-TitleID: 1122596 X-RT-AuthorID: 7582 X-RT-RatingText: 1/4
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews