Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is the best video game adaptation I've ever seen in a theater. And it's even better than that weak praise might imply.

We could spend this entire article regretting the existence of Uwe Boll or arguing the merits of the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil film series, but Detective Pikachu is such a fun, polished film that those comparison points really don't make sense. The more important comparison point is Pokémon itself—and the many feature-length cartoons that it has already been attached to.

Detective Pikachu is brisk, whimsical, and family-friendly, but it particularly wins out—and survives its pitfalls—by doing something really surprising: fully breaking from the Pokémon game-plot paradigm.

Take me down to Ryme City



















The film emphasizes this quality by opening with a clever fake-out. We begin with the camera flying over a sleepy, pastoral town where Pokémon meander in fields of tall grass (you know, just like in the games). Our protagonist, a 21-year-old guy named Tim (Justice Smith of Jurassic World 2), is urged by a childhood buddy to get back into the catch-'em-all swing of things—"relive the good ol' days!"—and bumbles his attempt in comedic fashion.

No thanks, not for me, he says. Tim likes his job as an insurance agent. Series fans might expect the film to go down a "Pokémon trainer" path from here, where Tim has a revelation, invests in a carton of fancy Pokeballs, and competes to master the strengths and weaknesses of a cast of Pokémon, all while making friends along the way.

Instead, Tim gets some really bad news, and he has to pick up the pieces—in Ryme City, the one metropolis in a Pokémon-infested Earth where trainer battles don't happen. It's a "place where humans and Pokémon live side by side," we hear in a newsreel description on Tim's train ride. When he arrives, the whole Pokémon-infested city unfurls. And it's glorious.

We get to Ryme City early in Detective Pikachu, which means most of the 100-minute runtime is spent in a place where roughly 50 Pokémon types hang out in city streets, at cafes, in underground nightclubs, and around nearby canyons and valleys—either commingling with their human companions (one per resident), wandering the world in richly animated herds, or working odd jobs. A four-armed Machamp directs car traffic around a passed-out Snorlax. A Loudred finds a comical opportunity to provide sound amplification at a "concert" of sorts.

As much as I enjoyed seeing Detective Pikachu in a theater, I cannot wait for this film to land on Blu-ray so that I can savor its massive crowds of people walking side by side with so many Pokémon. Each of these sequences can whiz by with only a few seconds of visible Pokémon, but the effort to individually animate each creature and have them blend so seamlessly with their environs is some of the most impressive stuff I've seen in a Hollywood production since I began reviewing films at Ars Technica.

This goes doubly for the scenes where we see major Pokémon characters hold onto and climb over their human allies. I've never seen CGI characters' fur and other materials mesh so perfectly with human actors in their vicinity. I actually noticed some ho-hum applications of ambient occlusion and shadows in the film's opening sequence, so I was heartened to see that visual annoyance prove an exception, not the rule.

Sorry, Pixar. The Detective Pikachu crew deserves your usual Oscar slot next year.

Don’t gotta catch ’em all

But what really gives me shivers is how well Detective Pikachu skips past the usual Pokémon-cartoon baggage. What is each Pokémon's superpower? How should you best counter a certain creature in a battle? What do you need to effectively capture or evolve an elusive character?

Detective Pikachu doesn't care. It doesn't even list most of the creatures' names, let alone their battle strengths and weaknesses, because this production is not beholden to cartoon adaptations' usual video game tie-in issues. Again: this is not the story of a burgeoning Pokémon trainer.

Dozens of Pokémon characters whiz by with their animations, actions, and goofy voices pulling the weight of comedy and excitement, and you don't need to know squat about the series to appreciate any of it. Think of A New Hope's cantina scene, where mystery and goofiness set plenty into motion, and then imagine a film letting that perspective ride for its entire runtime. It's awesome. That fun only multiplies if you're familiar with a particular character's game abilities and see how those are reflected in cute, blink-and-you'll-miss-them moments.

This sense of constant, seamless visual candy is the difference-maker for a film whose plot is otherwise rote. This is a mystery movie that children can enjoy, after all, so you can expect all the twists and nuance of something like The Great Mouse Detective. Plot points fall all too conveniently into place. The protagonists take some questionable, not-at-all stealthy actions while uncovering an evil plot. Deceptions and twists reveal themselves pretty blatantly.

Tolerable flyover above Montana

Yet Detective Pikachu never really feels rote or predictable, thanks to how it slips two secret tricks into a mystery-by-numbers screenplay: silly Pokémon, and Pikachu voice actor Ryan Reynolds.

I admit, I had my reservations about Reynolds' role after hearing his work as the murderous, foul-mouthed voice of Deadpool. Yet within two minutes of Reynolds manifesting as Detective Pikachu (whose voice can only be understood by Tim in this Poké-world), I was sold. There's subtlety and nuance (if you can believe it) for how Reynolds voices the world's most popular electric-mouse mascot, and his reimagining of the typically squeaky character fits.

Believe it: Pikachu makes sense as a friendly, over-caffeinated, and eager adult who can reflect with a somber tone one moment and turn wimpy and terrified the next. The slyness and dripping sarcasm of Deadpool's voice is nowhere to be found here, and the whole thing benefits from Tim as a confused, straight-man partner. What's more, since Tim and Detective Pikachu don't go down the normal Pokémon-adventure route of master and monster, we get to see Tim "grow up" in subtle, surprising ways, as opposed to his transforming into an against-all-odds action star.

Thank goodness, because the rest of the live-action cast ranges from serviceable to obnoxious. Tim's eventual foil, a perky reporter (Kathryn Newton), has all the subtlety and gravitas of a Hannah Montana guest-star, while a haughty, sneering business executive (Chris Geere) wallops viewers over the head with the idea that we're not supposed to like or trust him. If either actor wants to reprise their exact performance in the future, they'd be incredible fits for an average Pokémon cartoon.

But their campy, overeager performances are still a good fit and certainly not worth getting hung up over. They're good mid-film reminders that you're not watching Detective Pikachu for a refreshing new twist on the usual mystery story. Instead, attend this film to savor what happens when a film crew leverages the strengths of a zany, massive cast of monsters while checking their plot-dragging, game-battling baggage at the theater door. Should every other upcoming video game film start by shamelessly copying Detective Pikachu's formula, the cinematic world would be the better for it.

If Pokémon has become a part of your life for any reason—you played it, your kids play it, or you got hooked on Pokémon Go for a few months—go see this hilarious, sweet, and wide-eyed film. If not, prepare to have a perfectly good time while being confused by whatever the heck a Gengar is.