# Pokémon the First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (1999)

### reviewed by
Ronald O. Christian

    The Pokemon Movie

Capsule review: Big build-up at the beginning to a big snore at the end. I give it a probably overly generous two stars, only because I so recently suffered through Elmo in Grouchland to which Pokemon seems like Shakespear in comparison.

Ok, so like every other kid under eleven, my daughter absolutely had to see Pokemon The First Movie as soon as it came out. And so, armed with our popcorn and tooth-decaying drinks, we sit in the third row and stare up at 20 foot high animated toys. Heigh-ho.

The movie is divided up into two segments, a short called something like "Pikachu's Vacation", and the main attraction Mewtwo Strikes Back.

The less said about Pikachu's Vacation, the better. Most of the pokemon don't speak, you understand, except to say their own names with various inflection. I suppose this is so you can tell the 200-odd creatures apart. I recognized maybe four of them, which shows how woefully short I am on Pokemon lore.

A long dreary time later, the real movie starts.

The first ten minutes of Mewtwo Strikes Back, before the beginning credits, are actually fairly engrossing. The origin of Mewtwo is interesting, the voice talents are very well done, and the animation is first rate.

Then, after the credits, we degenerate into rather mundane tv-quality animation and a very plodding plot. The action picks up as the Pokemon trainers attempt to get to an island arena through a heavy storm, but things get uninteresting again soon after. We learn that the villain of the piece is Mewtwo (big surprise) and the plot slowly builds up to the inevitable confrontation between Mewtwo and his Pokemon against the Pokemon of the trainers. Somewhere along the line a Mew pokemon joins the good guys.

If you saw the commercials you know all of this. The trailer of the film covers the entire plot up to the square-off for the climactic battle. You sat through an hour of plodding, uneven plot and mediocre animation to get to this point. So what happens? What's the final pay-off?

What happens is that the film falls on it's flabby animated butt. No battle of any consequence occurs. Instead, all the pokemon are rendered powerless through Nonsensical Plot Device and must resort to bitch-slapping each other until through exhaustion they can no longer move their various appendages. Then the trainers suddenly decide that Fighting Is Bad and everyone kisses and makes up. And the audience is left with their mouths hanging open going "What the hell was that??"

There's not much else to say, except that I could not figure out the purpose of Jesse and James of "Team Rocket". Perhaps there is some other Pokemon movie that explains their existence and motives. They didn't seem to serve any purpose or have any goals. They just stumbled about opening doors, sitting on things and getting frightened.

Pokemon rates a very generous two stars for the very nice Origin of Mewtwo sequence. I'm tempted to subtract a star for that nonsensical ending, but I hesitate only because of a nagging doubt that this was the real, unedited ending as it came from Japan. I have to wonder if the flatness was specifically designed to appeal to what they imagine that American children want to see. If so, I'd be insulted.

                    Ron

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