Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us Review

When we were told that the 20th Pokémon movie would be a reboot of the franchise and stay disconnected from the television show, many were shocked and appalled. In the end, I Choose You ended up being a really solid start to this new storyline, and The Power of Us continues that story with similar success.

Everything is so gorgeous.

 The first thing I’d like to talk about is the animation quality. The hand drawn portions of the movie are absolutely fantastic, with a lot of attention to detail and very crafty animation techniques that make everything pop on the screen. The parts that are hand drawn with CGI enhancements infused are fantastic as well. The parts that don’t fit, though, are the pure CGI models inserted onto the screen. They might look good in a strictly CGI film, but it isn’t integrated very well and ends up being a bit jarring as a result. Thankfully these are usually relegated to buildings and large objects, so the characters retain the beautiful hand-drawn look (with or without CGI enhancements). I wish they had put more effort into blending the CGI into the look of the animation style rather than making it stick out like a sore thumb. This is honestly an issue with a lot of anime in general, but that is neither here nor there. Overall it still looks good and the CGI isn’t so bad that the entire movie is ruined, but it is certainly noticeable.

Team Rocket at it again.

The movie begins by introducing one of the new characters who ends up playing a large role: Risa. Her brother is in the hospital and wants her to go to the local wind festival that is meant to celebrate Lugia. The brother also wants Risa to capture him a special Pokémon, since he can’t travel there and do it himself. Being a good sister, she agrees to this venture despite not having any skill in Pokémon training. Even though Ash is, of course, the main character again, when it comes to character development, growth and focus, Risa is the real star in this movie. It’s quite refreshing that they took this route, since I Choose You spent a lot of time growing Ash already. Risa is a very fun character who struggles with self-doubt and self-worth issues due to an injury that took away her best talent: running. During her growth, there are a handful of subplots that take place that, to me, never felt out of place and flowed quite naturally without ever taking away from the value of Risa’s development. In a franchise where the movies were stale and repetitive for over half of its life, I was very impressed with how much love and care went into this one to make it good.

Like a leaf in the wind?

Like the previous movie, the star Pokémon narratively speaking is the most recent mythical Pokémon in the games: Zeraora. I feel like it was given more purpose and personality than Marshadow in the previous film, making it fit into the plot with far more success. There are of course plenty of Pokémon in the movie all with their own unique personalities, but this movie felt more focused on the human side of the story rather than the Pokémon, another contrast to the previous film.

I’m singing the film a lot of praise, but it’s in no way perfect. Beyond the visual issues I mentioned earlier, the voice acting feels a bit dry at times. Team Rocket is great, Risa is solid, Ash is questionable and the rest is a mixed bag. Sometimes I felt like the Pokémon had more expression than the humans, which is saying something since they only repeat their names over and over. To go along with that, some of the story beats feel a bit long-winded and unnecessary. This pulls away from the overall narrative flow, which is unfortunate because the overarching story is very good. Keep in mind that I watched the movie in English, since I was viewing it through the free Pokémon TV app and I had no way of switching languages to see if the Japanese voice acting was any better.

Zeraora is not messing around.

Still, The Power of Us is a very solid entry in a franchise that had gone stale long ago. Between this movie and I Choose You, I’m very much looking forward to the future of the Pokémon film franchise in hopes of it keeping this quality and care. Ultimately though, the film is catering to fans of the franchise. If you don’t play the Pokémon video games or TCG already (or watch the television show), you may not find nearly as much enjoyment out of the film as I did. Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us is out now on Blu-Ray and DVD at your favorite retailer, if you decide you want to pick it up. I have.

- Teepu

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Visuals: B-
Sound: A
Acting: C
Plot: B+

OVERALL: B

Pros:
+ Risa’s story is personal and compelling
+ Zeraora is one of the better handled mythical Pokémon stories in the franchise
+ The hand-drawn art is absolutely fantastic

Cons:
- The story drags at some points and messes up the flow of the movie
- The voice acting is average overall, at best
- The CGI sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the beautiful hand drawn animation

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