Pokémon Movie 14 Black—Victini and the White Hero Reshiram
I just saw this after its TV release this week. What can I say about it… I mean, where do I start? Ok, the name. This is Pokémon Black and it features the White Pokémon. To be fair, the game does this too, and I guess the movie is just following that trend. But, the movie is supposed to feature Reshiram, yet we get to see more of Zekrom!!!
Well, the movie starts with two summer-form Deerlings playing along a narrow cliff. Victini startles one and causes it to fall off (visions of Mew’s mischief making from Movie 8?). The other one tries to rescue it but is pulled down also. So, who comes to their rescue? That’s right, Twerp (“Ash”) Ketchum! And Victini somehow teleports him to a cave on the other side of the valley. He goes through the cave, which takes him directly beneath the castle, then finds himself, helped by Damon (presumably a different Damon from Movie 12), arriving just in time for……
A festival! With a Pokémon battle tournament. Cue opening credits! Which Twerp wins! How original! With Victini’s help. Like, Twerp’s Bacon Seed Tepig going up against a Samur-wotter; after a couple moves of it getting pwnd, an invisible Victini helps out the walking ham salad. Then his Zuruggu goes up against that three-headed dinosaur thing. It’s a dragon-type, so Iris of course has a massive orgasm. Zuruggu gets pwnd, Victini works its magic, then comes back to waste the hydreigon. But, Hydreigon’s trainer sees Victini… anyway Twerp wins the contest and the four five six of them go and play.
Turns out that Victini is fond of Dent’s macarons. So even when it’s invisible, it can be found by a disappearing macaron. Amongst the typical annoying cutesy-ness between Victini, the Annoying Yellow Rat, and Iris’s Kibago, it turns out that Damon wants to reverse the flow of the DragonForce. (Sadly, they didn’t get a piece in the movie.) Apparently, he had Zekrom tell him that his ideals will come to pass. But, it needs Victini’s power to do so (like Celebi from Movie 6). The entire castle raises from the mountaintop, and lo and behold, it is in the shape of a giant sword, with the castle as the hilt! So it levitates over to another mountaintop, and it pierces the ground to land.
[tl;dr]
But instead of the DragonForce flowing to help the land, it then starts destroying (like Movie 2 in reverse…this will soon make sense). And, it falls on Twerp to venture into the rock “sword” beneath the castle to find the White Orb that holds Reshiram (you know, like the Red and Blue Orbs of Groudon and Kyogre?). It looks like a maze of corridors reminiscent of the Tree of Beginning from Movie 8. Anyway this time, it takes a miracle from Victini for Twerp to navigate his way to the bottom and get Reshiram, who finally appears, granting Twerp his “truth”.
Meanwhile, Zekrom is guarding the flying castle, along with a Gothitelle (a cross between a ghost-type and Jynx), to fend off the others, with a Golett (the “Golem” pokémon), trying to rescue Victini, who now looks like a tortured Celebi (Movie 4).
Drum roll…
Twerp appears, on the back of Reshiram, and there’s a fight with Zekrom.
Victini gets rescued, yes by that annoying little obese yellow rat, leaving it along with twerp and Victini, while this thing rises inexorably into space. Twerp gets cold, and runs out of air, as they are plunged into darkness, with stars above them and clouds beneath them. How he survives this long must be chocked up to anime physics, I guess. However, he’s comatose but the annoying yellow rat and Victini are ok.
The sword-castle then descends, and Zekrom and Reshiram push it to a hill near the ocean, where it descends. The earth then turns from a dark purple to green (like the end of Movie 2, or perhaps 3), and then everyone lives happily ever after. Except for Victini, who goes MIA; presumably it used up the last of its life force in moving the castle…
So Twerp tosses a macaron in the air, it hovers for a moment, then nibble by nibble, vanishes.
WHY OH WHY DID THAT NUISANCE SURVIVE?!?!?!?!? AND ONLY LATIOS AND LUCARIO HAVE TO DIE???
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Disappointing… TR upset
So, after episode 49 of Best Wishes (706 of the series), we had Team Rocket come up with a great plan to capture all the Pokémon from Raimon (Nimbasa) City. They used a ghost train running through the city’s automated underground railway system. Meanwhile, over the previous few episodes, Meowth was travelling with Team Twerp, having been kicked out of TR for failing one mission too many. During these episodes, he would act as a negotiator (Nya-gotiator? Meow-gotiator?) between the humans and any Pokémon they came across.
But in Episode 49, we see Meowth’s true colours. he was only using them to gain their trust, and thus access to the Pokémon centre’s high-security Pokéball vault, which just happens to be connected to the underground via an air vent. So Meowth can throw the Pokéballs in (and cages for the annoying yellow rat and Kibago/Axew), and they end up in the Ghost Train, being driven by Jessie and James.
Episode 49 ends up with the irritating rodent in TR’s hands, and I was pleased. I was hoping they would be able to pull off one successful scheme in the 13 years of this show.
But of course not…
Episode 50 starts off where 49 left off (I guess they were aired on Japanese TV as a 2-part special). TR were releasing fake ghost trains, which seem to be giant train-shaped balloons on bogies. How they are able to run is beyond comprehension (must be the laws of anime physics).
Anyway, they end up on their way to Kanawa (Anville) Town, where the rail line runs at grade; this way TR can load the train carriage onto a helicopter, and make off with the Pokémon.
Who stops them? Team Twerp on one hand, and the annoying yellow rat releasing Team Twerp’s other Pokémon on the other. Of course, that rat is the hero whose thunderbolt destroys the helicopter’s hoist.
JJM blast off on jet packs (rocket packs?) into the helicopter, poké-less (as usual).
But Twerp at least admitted that he had a good time travelling with Meowth.
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Lucario and the Mystery of Mew (English-language review)
I’ve finally dared to put the English-language version of the eighth Pokémon movie in my DVD player. In all honesty, it wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared. It was a disappointment, as the Japanese version is in 2.35:1 widescreen letterbox format to suit its cinematic presentation in Japan. The English version, conversely, was designed as a direct-to-DVD release and thus was presented in the standard TV presentation of 4:3. As I have a widescreen TV, the result is that the Annoying Yellow Rat looks even more obese!
I’ve made some comments on this in my review on the Japanese movie. Again, we see Meowth caring for Pikachu, but “I guess you’d radda be wit’ your twoipy pal.” And again, while Ash the Twerp thanks Lucario for leading him to Pikachu, Meowth chimes in that he was the one who took care of Pikachu. Only to be ignored.
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ポケモンレンジャーと蒼海の王子マナフィ (Pokémon Ranger and the Prince of the Sea, Manafi)
The English copy of this arrived over the weekend. Man, what a disappointment! I know that movies, particularly Pokémon movies, are supposed to be bad in multiples of 3 (Entei/Unown and Jirachi), but this was just woeful. In fact, this movie saw a reversal of roles between Max and May from movie #6, as May was placed in the role of the newly-hatched Manafi’s surrogate mother (like Max and Jirachi) . Hmmm… haven’t we seen this before? Misty and Togepi… And Manafi’s incessant crying even makes it sound like Togepi.
And then there’s Jack Walker, Pokémon Ranger Self-Righteous Twat. He’s managed to put me off the idea of Pokémon Ranger. Not much more to say on him, really.
At least TR finally play baddies throughout and don’t suddenly turn into pseudo-goodies, like they do in nearly all of the other movies. And of course, Meowth always gets the best lines. “…diamonds and pearls”. “Sounds like a good name for a game.” (Some free advertising here perhaps?)
However the absolute worst thing about the movie, and I guess it’s plagued the TV series as well, is the new post-4Kids voiceovers. Jari-boy has to be the worst one, with his voice now sounding like a cross between Raphael and Michaelangelo from the original TMNT cartoon. Sarah Natochenny was perhaps not the best choice of voice actors to replace Veronica Taylor. Sadly the criticism of the decision will rest with the Pokémon Company, and not where it truly lies, at the feet of the gouging 4Kids. At least we’ve managed to regain Ken Gates as the narrator. Nothing against his replacement Mike Pollock, but the change in voice just makes it sound somehow “wrong”. Most of the other changes aren’t quite so bad.
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ミュウと波導の勇者ルカリオ (Mew and the Wave-Guiding Hero Rukario) (Japanese movie review)
It has arrived at last! I haven’t got the time to watch it yet though. Strange, this arrived today. I ordered it from amazon.co.jp two days after I received the email from amazon.com that my pre-ordered US version was despatched, which hasn’t yet arrived. Review to follow. My two box sets of Pokémon Advance (season 6) arrived today also.
I should point out that I do not speak Japanese, so I have only been able to pick up on what is going on by the action.
In all, this was dull and predictable but otherwise enjoyable. Rukario’s character was, at first, as stoic as to be expected, and gives Ash a well-deserved dunking (and had me shouting out, “Drown the twerp! Drown the twerp!”). But all too quickly, he turned into being all buddy-buddy-like with Ash. He’d have been best remaining as a somewhat aloof and removed character throughout, like Vegeta (Dragonball Z) or Akito Hayama (Kodomo No Omocha). Then again, that might have made him into a character clone of Mewtwo (yes, pun intended!). And yet again, we see Max is an idiot! You don’t give chocolate to a dog!
Let’s see… narrow bridge, all the heroes on one side, the three Regis chasing them on the other. How do we stop the Regis? Blow up the bridge of course.
Now, we know that The Twerp has the capability to control ki, excuse me, “aura”, Z-fighter-style. Will he develop this skill? Or will the only ki we see from him be the (reverse) genki-dama that he does with Rukario at the end of the movie? I guess the latter…
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