Il film Pokémon - Hoopa e lo scontro epocale

If you've seen any of the other seventeen(!) Pokémon movies (and if you haven't, stop reading this, and get thee to the Mewtwo!), Hoopa and the Clash of Ages won't hold a single surprise. The franchise has its formula of scant story, frantic melodrama, and epic, destructive battles anchored on teasing a new legendary Pokémon pre- international gaming release down to a science, and Hoopa isn't one to rock the Poké- ball. More discerning adult viewers might find this staunch formula irritatingly lazy by this point, but it's hard to overrule the abiding thrill of hearing that theme music kick in once again for fans young and old. Hoopa and the Clash of Ages may be one of the more forgettable entries into the Poké-pantheon, but the fun force is still strong with it, making it a daft but pleasant enough way to while away 70 minutes.

Standouts within the past crop of Pokémon films are usually determined by moments that are iconically epic (holla Mewtwo and Lugia, circa-2000), or deliriously surreal ("YOU. ARE. MAMA!"). If anything in Hoopa and the Clash of Ages stands the test of time, it'll be the glut of (almost) every Gen II-V legendary Pokémon it conjures up for its battle royale - which, being a nod to their transportation by Hoopa ring in the ORAS games, doesn't even feel excessively gratuitous. It's wise to share the spotlight, as Hoopa itself is far too irritating, awkwardly voiced, and thinly drawn (in both tiny, impish and massive, sh*t-destroying forms) to anchor and entire movie on otherwise. Still, its teleportation-fuelled mayhem is quite fun to watch, owing a debt to the portal-spamming Blink from X-Men: Days of Future Past (who was probably the highlight of that movie as well). Watching gigantic Hoopa Unbound grappling with its teleporting six arms against a tag-team of Lugia and Mega Rayquaza, smashing across a city skyline? About as awesome as it sounds.

As with its predecessors, Hoopa's animation is a step up from the show's calibre, and its realm of pseudo Middle Eastern desert temples turned technological oases are impressively etched with detail. But, with the trumped up production values come storytelling and voice acting several steps below par. Apart from Hoopa's infuriating chirping, the English dub of each of the core humans are dopily flat, especially Ash, who sounds more like a placid middle-aged woman than ever here, and James, whose replacement voice actor is cringeworthy. Mee-ouch.

Story-wise, Hoopa's weird, schizophrenic disembodied rage "shadow- self" and dubious, cultist spirituality/magic subplots are treated so disposably, it's hard to imagine even the screenwriters not laughing them off as transparently nonsense. There's little of the show's zany humour, which is a bummer (even Team Rocket's requisite flyby has never been staler). Similarly, the geography is fairly stationary, which restricts the "Who's that Pokémon?" background cameos, though a climactic appearance by an adorably heroic Hippopotas goes a long way. But a final battle against a disembodied rift in space/time (which, lazily, doesn't even seem to have anything to do with Dialga and Palkia, who are right there, nonsensically shooting energy beams into it trying to stop it)? Sure.

Whether Hoopa and the Clash of Ages is worth its weight in Pokéblocks will depend on the viewer's tolerance for the unyielding Pokéformula. It's a lot of nostalgic fun for indulgent Pokéfans (though monstrous Hoopa Unbound verges on being too scary for young kids), but liable to the leave the uninitiated wishing they could borrow a Hoopa ring to disappear into a different movie. But, let's be honest: as Hoopa queries ad nauseum, "Were you surprised?"

-6/10

Finally I watched this movie with a free trail And it was amazing!

A great adventure with a mythical Pokémon!

I have so many memories on this movie since 2015.

Hoopa is adorable in this movie

The fact that team rocket haven't done anything they keep showing up.

Nintendo and gamefreak did good job on this movie! Congratulations!

(These descriptions to extend it. When Ash, Pikachu, and their friends visit a desert city by the sea, they meet the Mythical Pokémon Hoopa, who has the ability to summon things-including people and Pokémon-through its magic ring. After a scary incident, they learn a story about a brave hero who stopped the rampage of a terrifying Pokémon long ago. Now, the threat that has been bottled up for years is in danger of breaking loose again! Can Ash help his new friend overcome the darkness within...or will a dangerous secret erupt into a clash of legends?)

Definitely the worst pokemon movie. It's fast, forced and generic, totally different from the trailers. The story, as much as it has potential, seems to have fallen cut during the beginning of production, earning a totally unfinished final product, which is really a shame, as it could have used a lot of potential that middle eastern culture had to offer. The soundtrack just gives a feeling of adventure, which as good as it is, at no time gives a sense of danger to the characters, leaving the action scenes a little monotonous. In no time, there's a big scene that makes you cry, which is a shame, since pokemon movies have a talent for that. The movie looks like it was only made to be able to create more Legendary merchandising due to the toy collections McDonald's and Pokemon Center were doing at the time.

here is my fav cartoon in childhood's movie but that movie i don't like what i watched in all it's episodes in my childhood that he fight with his pokemon and here he is just trying to escape they don't fight because another pokemon is powerful they are just running escaping in end that's suck me i didn't expect this to ass and i am thinking now he will catch that amazing pokemon but he didn't maybe story is good but as a fan of pokemon i didn't like it why there is not fight between ass pokemon's and another pokemon even team rocket is just did a side roll but that's not matter i just wanna too see a big fight and this movie doesn't stand in there

POKÉMON THE MOVIE: HOOPA AND THE CLASH OF AGES (2015) is the 18th Pokémon Movie and the second in the XY series (after last year's POKÉMON THE MOVIE XY: DIANCIE AND THE COCOON OF DESTRUCTION, also reviewed on this site). It offers at its center a mischievous little flying Pokémon named Hoopa, who talks and has a taste for donuts and boasts an extraordinary power found in the three rings it carries on its circular body in which it can teleport living beings and objects (some quite massive) from distant places to wherever it happens to be. Hoopa also has a giant form, with multiple arms and clawed hands, resembling a traditional Arabian Nights genie, as befitting the movie's Middle Eastern setting. The giant form of Hoopa is indeed contained in a bottle like the one that housed the genie in THE THIEF OF BAGDAD and similar tales. Hoopa, in his cute, dimunitive form, becomes the companion of two Arab children, Barza and Meray, who live in a traditional village, and pulls all sorts of pranks on the villagers.

A decade later, Barza and Meray enter Dahara City, a modern Middle Eastern megalopolis patterned after Dubai (United Arab Emirates), and encounter our heroes, Ash Ketchum, Serena, Bonnie and Clemont and their various Pokémon. Long story short: Hoopa's giant form, which had wreaked havoc on the village 100 years earlier, is released from its bottle after Team Rocket tries to steal it and begins a new rampage on Dahara City with the help of six Legendary Pokémon it has summoned with its rings (Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, and Kyurem), while Ash, Pikachu and little Hoopa summon some Legendary Pokémon of their own (Lugia, Latios, Latias, and Rayquaza). The ensuing battle royale in the skies over the sprawling nighttime skyline of high-rise Dahara City takes up much of the film's second half. The battles are spectacularly designed and rendered and would have been much more exciting in the service of a more engaging story.

I had two major problems with this scenario. For one thing, I never quite grasped why Hoopa came in two separate forms, with giant Hoopa able to exist outside of little Hoopa. Barza explains the giant form as "the Fury, the true form of the power that's trying to control Hoopa." He goes on to say that it's "a shadow of Hoopa" and that "the anger is trying to become the real Hoopa." So how is it able to take physical form and lift up huge buildings and smash them? Granted, abstract concepts like this are at the heart of the whole Pokémon franchise and it's futile to seek logical explanations, but in order to suspend my disbelief and accept something like this, I needed a more inventive explanation. Also, I found the mischievous little Hoopa extremely annoying and never understood the various characters' attachment to him. He does some pretty nasty things to them, yet they seem to find him endearing. Put the little Hoopa in the bottle also, I say. (I suspect, though, that the film's intended child audience will find Hoopa much more appealing than I did.) As a result, I didn't find a whole lot at stake for the main characters. They just seemed to enter someone else's story and decided to tag along, a not uncommon plot hook in these movies and less interesting for me than the stories where their own fates are directly affected. It doesn't help that Barza and Meray are such lightly-drawn characters who give us little reason to care about them.

The movie comes with a supplementary 14-minute short entitled, "Hoopa, The Mischief Pokémon," which offers vignettes of life in the Arab village with Barza and Meray as children and little Hoopa as their trickster companion. This short is featured as an extra on the Japanese DVD. When Cartoon Network premiered POKÉMON THE MOVIE: HOOPA AND THE CLASH OF AGES on December 19, 2015, it ran "Hoopa, The Mischief Pokémon" in the 15-minute time slot preceding the 6:00PM (EST) start time of the movie. Which struck me as odd, considering that it wasn't promoted at all and would probably have been missed by the thousands of Pokémon fans tuning in at 6:00PM. (I only caught it because I was curious as to why so much time had been allotted by CN to the preceding film, POKÉMON: ARCEUS AND THE JEWEL OF LIFE.)

Also, CN ran POKÉMON THE MOVIE: HOOPA AND THE CLASH OF AGES in a 90-minute time slot, a short time for a 78-minute movie, given that there were six commercial breaks of four minutes each. (Do the math.) A comparison screening with the Japanese DVD revealed one flashback scene eliminated and lots of individual establishing shots and short bits of action removed throughout the film. (For some reason, Team Rocket suffered the most, with lots of their reaction shots cut from the CN showing.) The Japanese end credit sequence is about four-and-a-half-minutes long and continues the action with scenes of Hoopa making amends for the damage it caused and scenes of Ash & co. continuing their travels, accompanied by an end song sung by Rei Yasuda. None of this was seen (or heard) by the Cartoon Network audience because the end credits were condensed to one minute for the U.S. showing and squeezed in on the side of the frame while a promo for a CN show ran on the other side of the frame. So, by my count, the movie itself was cut to around 70 minutes for the U.S. premiere. I don't understand why the Cartoon Network did this. They could easily have programmed the movie and the short in a two-hour time slot and not had to cut any of the movie OR the end credits.