Deciding to go the epic route, this film had some big shoes to fill because it's predecesor, The Rise of Darkrai, was the best film since Latios & Latias seven years ago. Opting to use the classic action epic mold with all the classic time travel tropes, they obviously emulated Darkrai's approach. Unforunately, Arceus's trilogy-closer fell short in the end - but not spectacularly, mind you. Being a fine watch, it offered nice action, occasional bad CGI and a timetravel story with questionable logic.
What stands out here is the ammount of mayhem and overt destruction the legendaries cause. For example, a mountain is split apart on-screen. In Darkrai's flick, the world was being peacefully eroded by pink ether. What a contrast! However, the threat in that movie was used as a plot mover while here it's just ecstatic violence for its own sake. And it works. There's a lot of it, but never enough to get boring.
The timetravel plot itself is servicable. I've found some joy in recognising all the classic time travel tropes. While the whole thing almost never feels as serious as it should be and there's quite a few nitpicks and plotholes I can point to, what is there never gets too dumb to watch.
There's not much else to say. The film is never stupid, just sometimes dull. The whole thing feels like a passable time waster that's hard to get upset about.
