Pokémon 16: Genesect und die wiedererwachte Legende

It's not a bad movie in any way, it's a good kid movie and there are plenty of pokemon to entertain young kids and pokemon battles between Genesect and various other pokemon. But if you're like me and you've been playing pokemon since the 90's this film is not going to be as good as for example Mewtwo returns or the movie 2000. Mewtwo and Ash act as if they've met each other for the first time ever, team rocket get barely any screen time and the only one of ash's pokemon that get any action is Picachu. This movie is primarily aimed at younger audiences like 3-8 because those of us who are 16 and above have been forgotten about by the pokemon company. But like I said, your kids or younger siblings will love it.

After the cultural landslide that was the cinematic release of Pokémon: The First Movie (hands up if you've still got a Burger King tie-in toy!), all subsequent Pokémon movies have struggled for relevance. Lacking in the first film's energy and urgency from being released in the thick of the rampant zeitgeist, the later straight-to-DVD offerings have largely slumped somewhat – still lots of fun for allegiant fans, but increasingly obligatory, and, arguably not unlike the games, inextricably knotted in a formula too restrictive for much innovation. Despite the franchise's motto, few would dispute that if you've seen one, you've effectively caught 'em all.

Genesect and the Legend Awakened, sixteenth(!!) film in the series, does not jostle this formula, but does its best to breathe some life and gumption into it. Unlike the customary expansive, globe-trotting Pokémon movie narrative, Genesect marks a rare exception where lowering the scope from "the fate of the world is at stake!" is actually beneficial. We still get the familiar 'thrilling but vaguely defined mythology' (the origins of the titular Genesect – fossil Pokémon who have been weaponized by humans…? – are glossed over in an infuriatingly quick aside), naturally. But, after an impressively gripping airborne mountain skirmish, the action is confined to a Pokémon natural reserve, and the bustling metropolitan city surrounding it, lending some interesting consequential collateral damage to the inevitably destructive Pokémon showdowns, and making the action all the more claustrophobically exciting. Naturally, there's little motivating the plot or conflict, but the trappings make it worthwhile. The animation demonstrates a marked increase in quality, and is gorgeously engaging in its fluidity, integrating more seamlessly with CGI to bring rich texture to the backgrounds.

As always, half the fun is playing your own game of 'Who's that Pokémon?' with all the cameoing creatures flitting by in the background – a shout out to a particularly valiant Feraligatr thrust into central hero status here. Similarly, the Genesect make for engagingly off-kilter enemies – uniquely eerie and alien in their fusion of robotic and insectoid tics, aided by some creatively skittering sound editing choices, even if their respective personalities, defined in the broadest of possible strokes, verge on irritatingly bland. Inevitably, the fun lies not in the moralizing melodrama, but in their fighting, with their myriad of abilities making for some furiously energetic and entertaining battles, changing shape like Transformers, ripping through the air, and letting rip with concussive energy blasts all the while. And at the other end of the ring: back by popular demand, the iconic Mewtwo (now, seemingly with added Poké-sex change, and mega-evolution to boot…) – a more than suitably thrilling and mobile sparring partner. Whether spitting cynical diatribes about creation and denial of humanity or blasting one another, the film sparks to life when the two titans clash.

It's a shame that the human characters fail to engage even more than usual. Diluting boy-hero Ash of his initial whiney exuberance may be an attempt at having the character slowly grow up, but recasting him as a perennial Mother Theresa type patron saint of all Pokémon is a far less interesting lead to connect with. This, in tandem with the lack of the show's goofy cutaway humour (the movies are SERIOUS BUSINESS, you know), an extraneously shoehorned in Team Rocket, and interplay with the particularly drab 'Gen V' Misty and Brock surrogates Iris and Cilan makes the filler character building scenes bridging the action drag far more than usual. As with most anime dialogue, kids will infuse the script's hyperbolically proclamative one-liners with their own inspirational profundity ("it's time…to push it…to the limit!"), but it's unlikely that even the most naïve or forgiving of audiences will fail to sneer at the film's climax and its aggressively trite moral about the importance of friendship, complete with a 'profound worldview' pilfered from Superman Returns of all things (bleh).

Such in-depth concerns may be a moot point, as Genesect and the Legend Awakened comes with a pretty infallible built-in audience. For kids or adult fans of the series, there's lots of fun to be had here, and the vivacity of the battles and exhilaration of the return of Mewtwo should help diffuse the over-familiarity of story. To those three under-a-Crustle dwellers who have yet to either yay or nay at the world of Pocket Monsters: this is unlikely to convert you as Poké-fans (or make even a mote of sense), but if the formulaic but fun action and heart on display appeals, you, like the Genesect, may finally have found a home.

-6.5/10

POKÉMON THE MOVIE: GENESECT AND THE LEGEND AWAKENED (2013) is the seventeenth Pokémon movie and the last one in the "Best Wishes" ("Black and White") series that's been running on TV in Japan since 2010 and in the U.S. since 2011. This time the regular protagonists' adventures take them to New York City and a brand-new Pokémon sanctuary established right in the middle of Central Park in the heart of Manhattan, making this the first time the Pokémon crew has traveled to this reviewer's hometown. It's much more of a solid action-adventure than usual for these movies, with far more Pokémon-vs.-Pokémon action than we've seen in a long time. In fact, the main characters of Ash Ketchum and his ever-present Pokémon sidekick Pikachu take something of a back seat here as the formidable MewTwo, a talking cat Pokémon created in a lab and first seen in the first Pokémon movie 15 years ago, takes on the major fighting role as he seeks to protect other Pokémon from the invading Genesects, a party of five extinct Pokémon recreated from fossils in yet another lab and then set loose on a destructive path into the world. One of the Genesects disdains fighting and laments that it just wants to go home. It soon bonds with Ash and his party and paves the way for some climactic mediation with the Red Genesect, the ruthless leader of the invaders.

MewTwo is quite a powerful creature and makes for a good match against the Genesects. Their fights dominate the film, although the other Pokémon in Central Park threatened by the invasion stand up for themselves as well, especially a muscular Feraligatr, a bipedal alligator-like Water-type Pokémon who bravely leads the resistance. It's quite a stirring sight to see an army of wildly different Pokémon fighting back entirely on their own initiative. Most of the Pokémon counterattacks take place under Central Park inside a massive power station which serves as a new nest for the Genesects. Meanwhile Red Genesect and MewTwo take to the skies over Manhattan and have some spectacular nighttime battles, slamming into high-rise buildings with alarming force. The action culminates in a high-speed trip to outer space for MewTwo and Red Genesect that leads to an unusual and highly suspenseful finale.

There's only one new human supporting character in the cast and that's Eric, the caretaker of the sanctuary, Pokémon Hills, and apparently the only one on duty when the Genesects threaten the power station and cause blackouts in parts of the city. Eric comes up with the solution that satisfies the Genesects' ultimate needs, so he plays a major role, but there isn't a lot of downtime for Ash and his friends, Iris and Cilan, to socialize with him, other than a quick meal of hot dogs, a "local specialty," as Eric tells them. Team Rocket, the series' set of regular, hapless villains (Jessie, James, and Meowth), plays a greater role in this film than they have in any of the last few films, although their efforts, as usual, come to naught.

The production design of the New York backgrounds is breathtaking, with shots of Central Park and the towering Pokémon Hills complex arising from within sprinkled throughout the film and seen at all hours of the day from afternoon to dusk to nighttime to dawn. (The story pretty much takes place over the course of a single day and night.) There is one shot of Times Square that perfectly captures the 21st century BLADE RUNNER-style configuration of giant screens and moving images arranged in sprawling formations that shower light on the area 24 hours a day. This isn't TAXI DRIVER's Times Square. The only significant difference from the actual Times Square is the predominance of Japanese lettering. (Truth to tell, the film never actually identifies the city by name.) Also, Central Park is a highly unlikely place to build a power station, particularly one that, according to Eric, powers the entire city.

This is the last movie in which we'll see Ash's "Black & White" companions, Iris and Cilan, since they're leaving the series as Ash moves into a new season, "Pokémon XY." I, for one, won't miss them, since their schtick has changed very little since they were first introduced over two years ago, with Iris constantly berating Ash for being "such a little kid" in that grating voice of hers (at least in the English dub) and metrosexual Cilan constantly waxing rhapsodic by means of forced foodie/cooking metaphors to describe everything he sees. (Too bad Cilan doesn't simply stay in New York, since he and Eric seem to hit it off.) Where are Misty and Brock when we need them?

I happen to enjoy the annual Pokémon movies and while I think the best of them are found among the first seven (up to and including DESTINY DEOXYS, 2004), there've been some good ones in the last few years, with this film standing out as one of the better ones. If I have any criticism it's that it doesn't give Ash and his friends a scene where they get to explore New York and see some of its famous sights. A tourist sequence would have made this outing just perfect.

The movie was released to theaters in Japan on July 13, 2013 and was first shown in the U.S. in an English-dubbed version on the Cartoon Network on October 19, 2013. It was released on DVD here on December 3, 2013, marking the shortest period of time ever between a Pokémon movie's Japanese release and its arrival in the U.S. In the past, I'd been accustomed to seeing the Japanese version of the movie well before its U.S. release. As of this writing, my Japanese video store in Manhattan still hasn't gotten the Japanese version.

This Pokemon movie is pretty good. It had a good plot, good themes and good animations. There were many kinds of Pokemon from older generations. Kids are sure to enjoy Ash's adventures and Pikachu's heroics. However, I hated Mewtwo's voice, personality and character design. It's definitely not the same Mewtwo from the Pokemon movies back in my day. They would've been better off leaving Mewtwo out of the movie. Also, I wish Cilan had gotten more screen time. Cilan is my favorite character. He is funny and has a great personality, but they made him run off somewhere for 1/3 of the movie. The movie was too serious.

This was a fairly decent Pokémon movie. This is hardly up there with the best ones, but it's at least a vast improvement over the fiasco that was "Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice."

I thought the premise was kind of interesting. I liked the dynamic with the Genesect having been created the same way that Mewtwo was. Not a bad way of using the cliché of machines created by humans turning into monsters.

The animation and GCI are top-notch, and the scenery is really nice in a setting that is based off Manhattan. The action scenes were also pretty good, and it was nice to see Ash's Charizard again.

However, there are lots of flaws. Of course, I didn't think there was any need for another movie involving Mewtwo, and I have no idea why Mew has a female voice in this film. It was kind of strange how Mewtwo just suddenly started caring about humans during the climax of the film.

The baby Genesect was kind of annoying with it constantly repeating "I want to go home" over and over. The script has its weak spots and some scenes are kind of strange. Also, there's Iris and Cilan.

While not everything in this one measures up, this is still a mostly satisfying addition to the series. Not really a must-see, but still worth a look for Pokémon fans.

RATING: B-