Welcome to March where movie-wise there is very little to talk about. We could instead talk about some important news like how the coronavirus has caused a toilet paper apocalypse in Australia or that ugly new Batman suit or let’s rant about how important plot points from the Rise of Skywalker, like Palpatine being a clone, are best shared on news sites months after the movie is no longer relevant.

I have never been good at discussing news trends so let’s talk about a Netflix movie I watched recently because the cinema is currently full of rubbish not worth watching. I just watched the new CG Pokémon movie Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution. That might be the worst title I have ever heard.

As I’ve stated in the past I’m not that big of a Pokémon fan. I don’t mind the Detective Pikachu movie and the Pokémon: Sword & Shield game is also pretty fun. The only reason I watched this movie is because it’s a sneaky remake of Pokémon: The First Movie, a movie I watched quite a bit when I was young kid. (How many here knew that this was a remake of an old 90’s anime?)

I’m only basing this off memory because I doubt I could sit through the original anime again, but from what I can tell it’s a shot for shot remake, but now everything is in 3D. Nothing new has been added to change up the story so if you haven’t seen the original then you’re going to experience an old Pokémon story, but remastered. If you have then all you’ve got is some more accessible nostalgia because that’s all I got from this.

I couldn’t get into this as the movie is constantly beating you over the head with it’s message of how Pokémon, humans and artificial Pokémon shouldn’t fight each other but should live in harmony. It feels strange as this franchise is all about sending young children to catch these cute little monsters so they can beat up other people’s cute little monsters. It really drags and that’s mainly because there is so little story going on which leads to the characters repeating the same things over and over again. I bet this was also in the original and normally with a remake you should fix short comings from the previous title, not just port them over to the new generation!

On the plus side the animation isn’t too bad, but it can’t top 2D. The character designs are all good except maybe Mewtwo, he just doesn’t look as cool as he did in the anime. Some of the humour is alright and that sad scene from the original is effective but the ending still sucks. There really isn’t much to say as it’s literally just a copy and paste of an older movie but now it’s in 3D. It shares many of the same problems that it’s predecessor had so I can never see myself watching this again and so it will share the same rating, a 2 to 3 out of 10.

I’m going back into my hiding place now so if you want to chat about Palpatine being a clone or any other popular trends DM me @BlogComplainer for my insightful views. I have a Q&A coming up so please leave some questions in the comments. I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.