Long running series like Pokémon at some point began falling off movie critic's radars. Movie reviews in the mainstream seem to only cover new material that comes out that no one sees coming. When a franchise is deep into its more than ten film run, most viewers who don't follow to tend to drop off. It's only recently that Marvel Studios has been feeling similar pain due to the oversaturation of properties, timelines and multiverses flooding the franchise. At this point anyone who were to watch something continuing for that long either must be a super fan, or is just devoted so much to keeping track of how the franchise progresses or regresses. For Pokémon, it has had its fair share of upward and downward swings. Recently it has done better in its outings, but it definitely took time.
Written by Atsuhiro Tomioka and Tetsuo Yajima, who also directed, this feature seems to be another one off movie set in another time than the anime. At least there's no expectation of it fitting in anywhere within the anime now. The story for this entry has a different character starting off with the audience. A Zarude Pokémon which happens to be quite aggressive in nature happens to stumble across a human infant. With no success in trying to find the child's parents, the Zarude (Edward Bosco) becomes Dada and the infant becomes Koko (Kimlinh Tran). There the two bond and learn about their world with a little help from everyone's favorite Pokémon trainer, Ash Ketchum (Sarah Natochenny) and Pikachu (Ikue Ôtani). As the last Pokémon film to date, it is a decent last watch although not as epic feeling.
What sets this story apart from others is that Ash plays a side character to this movie. The main focus is on Dada the Zarude and Koko. Writing focuses a lot on where one belongs, how they fit in and one's true purpose. These are all good questions every individual asks themselves at some point or another. This also gets put on both Koko and Dada. The Zarude Pokémon feels out of place with his own kind and the human isn't sure what to make of himself. The dynamic between the two also feels very authentic as with a child having no other parent that it seems only natural that's how they would react. The last time there was this much attention put into a mysterious character pairing was from Pokémon 3 The Movie: Spell of the Unown (2001).
There are other characters that appear like team rocket and Dr. Zed (Billy Kametz) who is in search of important information that belongs to the area Koko comes from. It is only because Ash does this character get involved. Otherwise there would be no plot moving forward from that point on. Even with that said, the scope of which this takes place doesn't feel as grand. For the voice acting, all perform well. Sarah Natochenny in her last film entry playing Ash gives her all like usual despite not being the main character. The same could be said for Kimlinh Tran, Kellen Goff and Edward Bosco who all have many voice acting credits to their name prior to this even if it wasn't from Pokémon. Michele Knotz and James Carter Cathcart as team rocket always provide a good showing as the second set to voice the usual villains that follow Ash.
From a visual point of view, the animation maintains the same level of quality that has been presented in the past few features. With over twenty animation directors on board the production, it looks like the right people were there to keep things on track. Ryô Kujirai being credited again for cinematography still isn't clear and at this point, oh well. Lastly the music composed once again by Shinji Miyazaki was average at best. The music wasn't all that memorable even though it feels like this film had elements to that of a musical, which is not a thing for this franchise. Perhaps this was just changed for the northern American markets. That's just a guess though. Either way, still not as impactful as the music used to be for a lot of the earlier films.
Cinematography and music are side components that still don't leave a lasting impact anymore. The scale of which the plot takes place doesn't feel as high in importance either. However as the last film to date, the voice acting is still spot on, the animation looks good and the script changes its focus a little to help keep the viewer's attention.
