Here’s where someone might step in and say that I’m being overly critical of a film arguably stolen by a supporting Pokémon named Psyduck, whose anxiety has to be managed or he could explode (I could relate, dude). “Detective Pikachu” exists in that gray area where it wants to be taken just seriously enough to allow for questions about its themes and plot but also sometimes feels like it wants to just be fun for the little ones. Consequently, it's a bit too complicated for kids (my second grader was a little confused) and is too shallow for adults and teens to even remember it the next day. “Pokémon Detective Pikachu” is the kind of movie that uses things like loss and estrangement as manipulative plot devices. It’s an incredibly shallow screenplay, one that offers less thematic resonance than most of the Pokémon cartoons.

Of course, not everything can be Pixar in terms of screenwriting, but when the design is as strong as it is here, it’s disappointing to consider what little the writers do with this world. One of the most rewarding elements of watching a movie with your children is discussing the themes presented by the movie and how the film conveys them, but any conversation of “Detective Pikachu” gets back to visuals or characters from the Pokéverse that your little ones spotted on the fringe before long. The human characters and the actual plot simply never develop any weight or momentum, and the movie never recovers after a poorly-executed scene involving moving earth that is really just loud and annoying (and the CGI doesn’t look all that good either, especially in that scene).

“Pokémon Detective Pikachu” almost works as a foundation for a franchise. If it’s hit, and it likely will be, I’ll actually look forward to returning to this world. Now that the visuals have been defined and the rules have been clarified, maybe the writers next time will give their characters—both human and Pokémon—something more interesting to say and do. Now that they've "collected them all," what do they do with them?

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