Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You! (Dir. Kunihiko Yuyama, 1h 50 m)

Ah, Pokémon. At once a cultural phenomenon, a source of nostalgia, and a franchise that has well and truly become beloved to my generation, not to mention those who came after us, and a repetitive, manipulative and divisory money-making ploy. Yet, latched on somewhere in the collective memories of those who enjoyed the Saturday morning cartoon with overly sugary breakfast cereal before booting up their Game Boy, to catch a few new of the (then only) 151 monsters, before heading to the local store on a wet and windy Saturday to buy a few packs of trading cards, Pokémon is an epoch-defining piece of media. Whether in game, cartoon, or card form, we lapped it up, even as playground fights got the latter banned from schools worldwide.

Pokémon, alongside the critically underrated Digimon was not only my gateway to fandom, and the idea of being a fan, and speculating about things, and using the internet to find about things (even if, such as fake Pokémon such as Mewthree, they were completely false), but my gateway to anime, gaming, and trading card games. If Pokémon now feels omnipresent, it certainly felt damn close back then. And at the tip of this cultural monolith, that now stands as perhaps the most valuable franchise of all time, came Pokémon the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back. Its role in widening the profile and appeal of anime is, despite the film's low budget, and having dated poorly, undeniable. Even now it's an enjoyable romp, part PG-rated Frankenstein's Monster, part hi-tech revenge thriller, and whilst thematically it's rather muddled, at least it still retains some of its cinematic splendour.

 But Pokémon, as the new millennium began to stretch before us, started to disappear from the popular imagination. The first three movies, including Mewtwo, got decent cinematic, if slightly short, releases, and easy to find VHS copies. But then, with the fourth film onwards, the films got VHS, then later DVD releases, and got harder to find. The trading and video games, as well, seemed to not exactly disappear, but I moved away from them, finding other things to play, and watch, and read.
But little by little, Pokémon began to regain its former power-in my last year of secondary school, almost overnight, Game Boy Colors returned, people started talking about Pokémon again, and ever since, buoyed up by nostalgia, a resurgent Nintendo, and a new generation of fans, Pokémon began to rise once again, culminating in the release of the hysterically popular Pokémon Go last July.The stage was set, further compounded by the stellar sales of Pokémon Sun and Moon, for the series' 20th Anniversary.

In essence, in this most important year, Pokemon: I Choose You acts as two things. The first is a love letter to that original generation. The film, at first, acts as a retelling of the first few episodes of the original series, with lovable almost-hero Ash Ketchum sleeping in late on the day he's meant to receive his Pokémon partner, and set out on his journey, and is promptly saddled with recalcitrant electric mouse Pokémon Pikachu. Though they dislike each other at first, they eventually make friends, through a series of trials culminating in their attack by a huge flock of Spearow (basically, large angry sparrow Pokémon with an attitude problem). So far, so fairly innocuous retelling, although some of the details are smoothed over or told in a slicker, smarter way. Ash promptly sees a mysterious flying Pokémon that drops a glowing, miraculous feather, vows one day to battle it, and the chase is on.

And then the film suddenly takes a left-turn into an entirely new concept, with Ash battling Erika, the gym leader of the third gym, promptly cutting out Brock and Misty. The Pokémon of your childhood, this ain't (despite recurring villains Team Rocket promptly rocking up to quip, snark and not be in this film long enough), as Pokémon from various generations promptly appear, the partners of new duo Sorrel and Verity, (a Pokémon professor in training, and a hotheaded trainer determined to make her mother proud). They promptly come across legendary Pokémon Entei, attempt to battle it, and are chased by both it and colossal rock Pokémon Onix. One thing that can be said about this film is that it's far closer to the way that the games made you feel. In short, that there are Pokémon everywhere, and some of them are dangerous. The trio promptly bond with each other and set out on an adventure, with Sorrel's knowledge of legendary Pokémon, to find, and hopefully battle what is quickly identified as legendary, phoenix-like Pokémon, Ho-oh, who lives atop the tallest mountain of a nearby range-as the bearer of the feather, Ash may be more than just a regular trainer. 

What this film does with almost perfect precision is to give us exactly what we've always wanted in a Pokémon movie. Ash and Pikachu back on the open road with a couple of decently rounded characters, a few Pokéballs to hand, and only the duo's unique bond against the world-this is, after all, a film that focuses on, in both directions, the friendship between Ash and Pikachu-in one nightmarish scene, Ash is thrust into a grey and dull alternate universe where Pokémon don't exist, only to see a few sparks, and promptly runs through the collapse of that world to reunite with Pikachu. Elsewhere, it peppers nicely with references to the original show, gets the emotional peaks of the show and the general concept of a life spent in the great outdoors (and in several cities) with friends, down perfectly, encapsulating the entire Charmander to Charizard that forms one of the emotional backbones of the original series down to a few perfectly chosen scenes.

Even if the side characters are a little one dimensional, and the human villain even more so, there's something quite satisfying with all of their arcs, and when we part with them, as Ash always seems to do, we feel another two characters (admittedly not on a par with either Misty or Brock, whose absence is undoubtedly felt), have been added to Pokémon's sizable pantheon.The battles are action packed and well choreographed on a scale never before seen from the Pokémon films, and even the dub cast, though some of the voices are unfamiliar to me, (heck, I've not watched the anime in years), are a good bunch, and the score is among the best I've heard for any non-Ghibli anime, filled with pathos and heartwarming nostalgia in places, and stirring in others.

I cannot dislike this film, cannot, for all its cheap but cheerful animation, for all the voices that don't quite fit in the familiar way that Veronica Taylor et al do, for all the slavish fan-service to fans new and old. This is, after all, a letter to all fans, not just those who have been with Ash at every turn of the journey, but those who have only just joined him, or even those, like me, who stepped off the trail and are only now returning to continue the adventure. Pokémon's 20th Anniversary, in short, ends as the franchise began-with Pokémon the biggest thing on the planet, and Ash Ketchum off on another journey, with Pikachu by his side, and us along for the ride. It's like we've never been away.

Rating: Highly Recommended.