Alright, has everyone seen the painfully adorable yet surprisingly deep Detective Pikachu yet?

Good, let’s talk about how terrifyingly messed up it is in terms of disability… with some light spoilers.

Pokemon Detective Pikachu integrates the audience into the colorful, busy world of Ryme City with relatable main stars Lucy (Kathy Netwon) and Tim (Justice Smith), an intriguing but easy to follow storyline even for those of us who haven’t been living in Kanto, Johto, or Sinnoh since we were (clears throat) however old, and the pure escapist fantasy that only GameFreak’s monster franchise can provide. Did I mention Pokemon in the real world look awesome? Because they look awesome. Oh, and Deadpool as Pikachu is surprisingly a win.

Nostalgia aside, Detective Pikachu feels more like a cutesy Bladerunner movie than a kid’s flick. There are scenes of underground crime, blatant allusions to drugs, and illegal Pokemon battles – things only hinted at in the main series of games but not actually shown (well, unless you count the infamous slot machines of Red/Blue… only way to get a Porgyon, eh?). And not one but two positive depictions of interracial romance? Yes, please, may I have another, sir?

Pokemon Detective Pikachu is actually an adaptation of a spin-off game from the main series, Detective Pikachu, released in 2016. The plot of the movie takes some liberties with the plot from the games and while a lot of elements work neatly, some things take a turn for the gross. Quick, watch the trailer and tell me who you think is the villain.

Yes, it’s Villain in the Wheelchair time. And as a character with a disability, of course his primary motivation is to fix and be fixed. In a shockingly violating manner that left me feeling a type of way. Why? That particular motivation wasn’t present in the game, but perhaps that was a little too Supervillain Generic. Does that mean we’re supposed to inherently relate to this character’s goal to “help” even with its underlying undercurrent of ableism? No thank you.

“But it’s just a kid’s movie, why does it matter?” you might say. Well, kids in wheelchairs watch movies, too. And, it’s important because representation for characters with disabilities already sucks. One might even say abysmal. And unlike scenarios in which a group is overrepresented in a negative way, the representation for physically disabled characters is just barely there period.

I think back to Shazam!, another movie I highly enjoyed that did a lot of things right (positive representation of a foster home? Holy outer gods, we’ve really hit the big time!) but also got awkward when it came to disability. In the movie, Freddy doesn’t angst over his disability nearly as much as his comic book counterpart although we do see his struggles with self-esteem to counteract Billy’s aloofness and feelings of abandonment. That’s valid representation, but Freddy ends up becoming a morality pet for Billy to trigger his heel-face turn. And like the comics, Billy gives Freddy the power of the wizard Shazam that “fixes” him, however temporarily, for superhero mode. Oh, the implications. If only he could be… a super hero… with a disability. If only those existed! Oh wait, they do.

It sucks because Freddy is pretty inspiring with his tenacity and boundless optimism all on his own. It sucks because there is definitely further motivations for evil in a movie besides “fixing” a disability. It sucks because it’s still just not a lot out there to say, “that was a one-off of bad representation”. The norm appears to be whipping out warmed over disability tropes without much critical analysis, writing out a character’s disability, or simply denying disabled actors the chance to play in disabled roles. Can Hollywood really only do one thing at a time, and when will it be time for physically disabled characters to have their moment on stage?

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