Reviews

As much as I like Pokemon movies, I did not like The Rise of Darkrai. Starting with the good, Darkrai was the best part of this movie. Every scene involving Darkrai was great, partially because Darkrai has a cool design, but mostly because Darkrai was the most interesting character in the movie. Darkrai had a great backstory, and the production team did a great job of showing the audience that Darkrai was not the monster everyone else believed him to be.

Other than Darkrai, the movie doesn't have a lot going for it. I think the biggest reason for this is that the main cast of Ash, Brock, and Dawn barely contribute to pushing the plot forward. Dialga and Palkia are cosmic forces far beyond the main cast's control and are the main cause of the dramatic conflict. That is not a bad premise in itself, of forces beyond the characters' control has been done well in other Pokemon movies. But it was poorly executed in The Rise of Darkrai because the characters don't really learn the cause of the problem until late in the film, so everything they are doing until that point feels really aimless, which also just kills the film's pacing. And the movie even wasted Jesse, James, and Meowth, whose inclusion added nothing to the plot aside from a couple of small gags.

I wanted to like The Rise of Darkrai more, but its flaws hold it back too much for me.