By ANITA GATES

EW YORK -- In the year 2015 or so, it's going to be embarrassing. Young novelists and reporters will probably be using terms like Charizard-like or Squirtle-like in their work and insisting to their much older editors that everyone knows what they mean, everyone who ate and slept Pokemon as a child, anyway, which will be the vast majority of young adults.





Warner Brothers Ash, right, and his pal Pikachu in "Pokemon: The First Movie."

But for now, parents don't have to know the names and attributes of all 151 monsters to understand "Pokemon: The First Movie." In fact, they don't have to know much of anything. This energetic 90-minute film is, however, an opportunity to observe many of the pocket monsters (that's what Pokemon is short for) in action.

Charizard is a flying, fire-breathing dragon type who, in the film, gets his head stuck in a pipe. Psyduck, who resembles a duckbilled platypus, looks entertainingly silly and, one adult fan reports, has powers only when he has a headache. There's a monster called Togepy, but adults may prefer to think of it as Starfish Eggshell Baby, which more accurately describes its anatomy. There's one called Marill who looks like a blue mouse with a big white underbelly.

There's one whose name I didn't catch that weeps projectile tears. Of course there's Pikachu, the cutest of them all, a bright yellow, glistening-brown-eyed cross between a Muppet (maybe Elmo's perpetually smiling cousin from Tokyo), Winnie-the-Pooh and a bunny rabbit wearing rouge. But when things get nasty, Pikachu shoots electricity from his tail. This dual personality element has got to be a big part of the Pokemon appeal to children. I may look adorable and innocent, the child-monster seems to say, but don't make me mad.

Sadly, the magic doesn't bridge the generation gap. Whatever else has made "Pokemon," a Japanese cartoon series dubbed in English, and all its attendant merchandising the biggest children's pop-culture phenomenon in ages is still a secret of the grammar school set. But the animation, with its rich colors and stylized angles, is fun to watch and at times does seem like a psychedelic "Sesame Street."

The film's plot is a simple variation of "Frankenstein" with James Bond accents. In an isolated laboratory on New Island, evil scientists have bioengineered a new version of the rarest of all Pokemon, Mew (which appears to be a flying cat with no mouth). What they get is Mewtwo, "the most powerful Pokemon of all," about 10 times the size of the original and 50 times as mean.

Mewtwo is angry with its creators for bringing it into the world with no purpose, so it crashes through a lot of glass and sets fire to the lab and chases the humans away. Then it lures the best young Pokemon trainers and their Pokemon to the island for a mean-spirited showdown of clones versus originals. (Mewtwo, being a fast learner, has cloned all the visiting Pokemon.) As children well know, nobody actually dies in Pokemon world; a battle is won when one monster knocks the other unconscious.

One of the young Pokemon trainers involved is, of course, Ash, the 12-year-old hero of the "Pokemon" television series on the WB network. He and his friends Misty and Brock turn up on New Island with Pikachu and others. Ash's Rocket team of archenemies, consisting of a red-haired girl named Jessie, a purple-haired boy named James and a Pokemon named Meowth who talks a lot like Top Cat (in fact, he's the only Pokemon who can talk, I'm told) -- are not far behind.

From then on, the Pokemon do battle and characters spout pacifist profundities. "A Pokemon's real strength comes from the heart," says one.

"This just proves that fighting is wrong," says another. "Someone's got to take a stand. Someone's got to say no and refuse to fight."

As these words of wisdom are spoken, pairs of monsters large and small continue to punch each other silly.

A lot has been written about the admirable lessons that Pokemon teaches children about responsibility, teamwork and obedience. But some unfortunate messages are being sent as well. Take the scene in which the harbor master tells all the young trainers that the boat to New Island has been canceled because there's a terrible storm at sea and it's not safe. A select few of the children head into the storm anyway and make it to the island, where they are praised as the only true young masters. Back at the harbor, the woman in charge is admiring, too. "They follow their hearts," she tells an employee. "That's what sets them apart. To them it's just another challenge."

Yes, challenges are always character-building, but this "Pokemon" scene endorses a reckless prove-yourself attitude, the kind that leads inexperienced young pilots, for instance, to fly at night in low visibility. Parents may want to point that out.

PRODUCTION NOTES:

'POKEMON: The First Movie'

Directed by Kunihiko Yuyama, with English adaptation directed by Michael Haigney; written by Takeshi Shudo, with English adaptation written by Norman J. Grossfeld, Haigney and John Touhey, based on a creation of Satoshi Tajiri; director of photography, Hisao Shirai; edited by Toshio Henmi; music by Ralph Schuckett and John Loeffler, with additional music by John Lissauer and Manny Corallo and "Pokemon" theme by John Siegler and Loeffler; art director, Katsuyoshi Kanemura; chief animator, Sayuri Ichiishi; produced by Grossfeld, Choji Yoshikawa, Tomoyuki Igarashi and Takemoto Mori; released by Warner Brothers. Running time: 90 minutes. This film is rated G.

With the voices of: Veronica Taylor, Philip Bartlett, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Addie Blaustein and Ikue Otani.