In the same vein as The Lion King remake last year, the people at Pokémon have decided to re-energise their first cinematic adventure with computer generated imagery. Apparently, this is the 22nd Pokémon movie made, and the first to debut on Netflix – I stopped paying attention after the fourth, and haven’t seen any since. (I always remember Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns has those baby Nidoqueens, when shouldn’t they be Nidorans? I never thought fully-evolved Pokémon gave birth to fully-evolved Pokémon – continuity errors can be so weird.) But, with the depressive lockdowns occurring all over the world to combat COVID-19, what better time for a huge nostalgia hit with Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution.
I’m so excited that I get to talk Pokémon – my fondest Pokémon memories come through getting the anime show on video tape (as I never watched it on Cheez TV before school), collecting Pokémon cards, and playing the Nintendo games up until Ruby & Sapphire, including Pokémon Stadium. Pokémon: The First Movie came out when I was in Primary School and any kid who didn’t go see it at the movies was a real loser – that was me. Needless to say, when the VHS came out, I had to have it. This movie, Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution, is directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and Motonori Sakakibara, and follows our heroes, Ash Ketchum and Pikachu, when they are summoned to a secret island by a mysterious Pokémon, Mewtwo, claiming to be the world’s greatest Pokémon trainer.
This adaptation upgrades the animation of Pokémon: The First Movie in a much-appreciated way; the landscapes, the water, the Pokémon, have all benefited from a growth in the animated industry. I don’t watch much anime, so it took me a while to adjust to the characters clearly not being animated to speak in English, with Japanese being Pokémon’s primary language; it’s the first time I’ve noticed how much more sophisticated mouth-movements are in 3D animation, which is probably obvious. At times, the movement of some of the human characters isn’t as smooth as it could be, compared to Disney or Pixar, but I still amazed myself by how excited I was in anticipating the next shot. Seeing the shine of the gold on Staryu, the rock texture of Onix or the wind-blown manes of galloping Tauros stirred me up inside. Yes, I know Detective Pikachu came out last year, and I was giddy at the opening Cubone scene, but some of those designs were not my vibe, like the first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer compared to the apology – Psyduck with feathers? No, no, I want my yellow duck smooth! If Pokémon were to continue down this route of CGI movies, I’m sure the animation would only get better and I give this movie the title of an acceptable starting point. If this is all we see, then I’m still satisfied. I think the only characters that don’t make a successful leap across mediums are Ash, Misty and Brock – perhaps they are just too iconic in their original formats and are best untouched. Ash, with his cheek-wrinkles, and Brock, with his squinty eyes and patchy haircut just don’t look right, in the same way I imagine Lisa Simpson or Stewie Griffin would suffer if their designs were upgraded; funnily enough, I thought Jessie, James, Jenny and Joy all transitioned well.
There seems to be only minor detail updates along the way, and I didn’t see a problem with any of them – Team Rocket now make their way across the wild sea in a Lapras-boat instead of posing as Vikings, and the backgrounds seem more extensive, especially in the laboratory where Mewtwo breaks out. Everything else is exactly the same. I thought at one point the filmmakers might take the opportunity to punch up the story, but there’s no need, when that frozen Ash scene still brings the emotional weight of the deepest poetry; it’s Pikachu’s weary cries as he tries to shock his friend back to life that choke you up inside… I chose to believe it’s Mew who brings Ash back to life, by channelling the outpour of loving Pokémon’s tears into mystical psychic energy. Otherwise it’s just… miraculous bullshit?
And yet, two decades after the original movie, I still don’t completely understand Mewtwo’s objection to the Pokémon world. He is an artificially-crafted science experiment who doesn’t fit in, granted, but his plan involves cloning the strongest Pokémon from the strongest trainers, to be the world’s best trainer, just like a human, although he despises humans; is that right? Wouldn’t a Pokémon liberation story have made more sense, where Mewtwo advocates freeing the Pokémon from their human slavery and Pokémon battles? As I see it, Mewtwo wants to prove his power to rule, but doesn’t appreciate the dichotomy set up by the oppressive humans, using Pokémon for their own ends. The story we get sets up a bruising fight to the death between clones and original Pokémon that is criticised for its brutality in an already violent universe. Pokémon already got a bad rap off parents back in the day; I know my Dad hated it because he thought it promoted animal cruelty – seeing two Charizards bite at each other before collapsing in an exhausted heap wouldn’t have changed his mind. A story whereby Mewtwo offers Pokémon their salvation from humans, but they chose to stand by their masters and their way of life, out of love for training, would have helped set-up Pokémon battles as a legitimate sport – the movie could have confronted the violence in Pokémon and still delivered the same message that it does, that a Pokémon and trainer’s true strength comes not through their fighting but out of their hearts. That’s my take away, anyway. Mewtwo still could have been enraged by the Pokémon’s decision to stay underlings initially, accusing them of Stockholm Syndrome and being weak, before realising that the love between a Pokémon and their trainer goes both ways.
I think this movie is really cool; and now, through Netflix, parents can plonk their children down in the living room and let them watch a movie like Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution without having to attend a cinematic screening with them; all those shots of Pokémon creatures that parents didn’t care about simply stating their name must’ve really sucked back in the day… but who am I kidding, it’s man-children and Poke-fans that’ll be watching this movie, not little kids 😊 This is for us! I liked hanging out with Mew again – I realised he went underrated way back when because he wasn’t in the Kanto-150, and missed out on a lot of merchandising, and wasn’t able to be caught in the original games (and even if you did get him through promotion, he wasn’t fantastic). But his design and free-riding spirit are really cute; I wish I’d seen more of him.
I don’t completely know why Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution works for me where The Lion King (2019) doesn’t, but the simplest answer would be that whilst I’m attached to the Pokémon nostalgia, Pokémon: The First Movie isn’t as transcendent for me like the originally The Lion King. This remake is also not extending too far past 2D-animation, to appear live-action – and as we saw with Cats earlier this year, you’ve got to be careful with that shit. Pokémon: The First Movie was always a flawed movie, and Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution brings those same flaws with it. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this remake, and it serves as a perfect way to celebrate Pokémon’s progression over the last twenty years.
3.5
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