Pokemon Movie 04: Celebi Toki wo Koeta Deai

Pokemon 4EVER is not only the worst English Pokemon title, but also the worst movie among the original five. Shallow in every way, there's not much good you can say about this movie. Frankly, the only positive constant throughout the movie is the gorgeous art. In a few of its quiet moments you really feel like you've been transported into a heavenly forest. There's also a single fun sequence consisting of a fight with a pokemon trainer and the ensuing battle against time, as Ash runs to an already departing ferry. If that sounds like very little, that's because it is.

On a more critical side ... of things, the cringeworthy introduction of the main antagonist is hard to watch. As his terrible (in both dub and sub) evil laugh spreads throughout the forest, your brain hurts - how did he invent pokeballs that turn pokemon souls evil and have an effect of leveling them to level 100? As you wonder, he suddenly pulls out an awkward spider mech. Movie, can we please go back to Ash?

Another poor victim of the movie is the dialogue. After the pretty good (subbed) dialogue in the first movie, servicable dialogue in the second and some really good lines in the third, this movie treats us to really cringey writing period. Beyond that, the whole plot is filled with contrivances and nonsense in general. Following the bad choices from the second movie, all science and logic are thrown out of the window. Nothing makes sense and nobody tries to explain anything. The movie presents us with the first braindead Pokemon fantasy ride instead of a realized Pokemon world.

Character development doesn't happen. There's no complexity to anyone and there's a single forced designated character development scene, which, frankly, doesn't work. The movie feels like a made for tv production aimed at kids aged 3 to 5, inducing only cringe in anyone older when it turns to self parody as Ash graciously flaunts Celebi's dead body towards the screen as a cheap way of making us care (before reviving him because you can't have death in a Pokemon movie).

In conclusion, there's not much good in here. It simply exists. I can only tentatively recommend it to extremely hardcore pokemon fans who watched the whole anime series and after all of that have no standards left whatsoever. If that's you, you might enjoy some comfy moments it offers. For a few minutes at least.

Wow! I guess I'm the only one who literally didn't find this enthusing. I have not seen much of Pokemon so I don't know if the story's kept interesting, the characters in-character or the art being changed, but let me review.

Story: The plot takes place in a forest, much like movies like Princess Mononoke or Castle in the Sky. But these kids find this monster who happens to be a time traveler. But then they run into this vicious guy who tries to make the monster turn from good to bad and it's up to the team to turn him back into a good monster.

The ... art is alright, I guess. There were some computer-generated animated scenes, but I guess it's pretty decent. Not the best out there though, could've been better. Can't say anything about the sound, but from what I remember, it's pretty much kept as usual.

As a matter of fact, my cousins are obsessed with Pokemon and used to watch it all day and I used to watch it with them ever since I was like 5-7. But got tired of it, watched a Jiggly Puff special at eight-years-old, found that to be good, but I found this film to be very disappointing.

I used to watch Pokemon when I was little, but not very much. I guess I'm pretty much grown out of it now and I heard that there's a lot of hate out there for this show, Naruto and Bleach (mostly the old, kiddish anime shows).