Pokémon, le Film: Diancie et le Cocon de l'Annihilation

POKÉMON THE MOVIE: DIANCIE AND THE COCOON OF DESTRUCTION is the 17th movie in the Pokémon franchise. While it's not one of the better movies in the series, it has its moments of visual spectacle and excitement and should still delight the series' many fans. The big problem with this one is the sheer multiplicity of villainous factions, all trying to abduct the cute and diminutive Diancie, a jewel Pokémon princess from some underground kingdom. There are at least four factions after Diancie because of her budding ability to conjure diamonds out of thin air. The fact that her diamonds, initially at least, evaporate after a few minutes doesn't seem to deter any of them. Even Team Rocket gets into the act, making for the biggest parts they've had in a Pokémon movie—probably ever!--and one of the few times they've been active villains in one of the movies.

Ash Ketchum and his friends (Serena, Bonnie and Clemont) become Diancie's protectors after rescuing her from a multi-pronged abduction attempt in a remote European mountain town. The most enjoyable scenes come when they travel together and bond and have fun, including a trip on a cruise ship to a big city and a visit to a shopping mall where the girls (Serena and Bonnie) take Diancie to a clothing store and play dress-up. Soon after this, they enter Diancie's underground kingdom where they learn that the heart diamond that powers the place is losing power and only Diancie can restore it, but only after her powers are enhanced by the mystical deer god Xerneas in the forbidden All-Earth Forest nearby. (If Xerneas reminds you too much of the "shishigami" from PRINCESS MONONOKE, you're not alone.) However, lurking in the forest is a formidable Pokémon menace, Yveltal, a giant bird monster that is laying dormant in the "Cocoon of Destruction." Should it be awakened, all hell will break loose.

The action soon shifts to the forest and, as expected, the interventions of all the competing villains—Marilyn Flame, Ninja Riot, Argus Steel and Team Rocket—cause Yveltal to awaken and go berserk, shooting rays that turn everything they touch into stone. Only the intervention of Xerneas can save the day. It's all very spectacular, but doesn't make a lot of narrative sense. I wish there'd been more context provided and more proper build-up, as in last year's Pokémon movie, GENESECT AND THE LEGEND AWAKENED, which set up the antagonists' backstory in a timely and concise fashion. The existence of this massive, unexplored forest and underground Pokémon kingdom so close to a large metropolis is never explained. Couldn't the writers have established its existence in a more remote locale first? It may seem like a minor point to the child audience, but in past Pokémon movies they always took great care to establish the more exotic settings in a more satisfying way. A lot happens in the final 15-to-20 minutes, but it was never terribly suspenseful. Which is too bad, because Diancie herself is a genuinely interesting new Pokémon protagonist and is one that can talk, albeit telepathically. Her scenes with Ash & company and her socialization process after being underground all her life are the best parts of the film and make one wish the action elements had been streamlined a bit. It all got overly complicated with the heart diamond, Yveltal, the All-Earth Forest and everything. I like it when there's one strong antagonist and a conflict that directly impacts our heroes, as in last year's GENESECT film (which I've also reviewed on this site).

This movie is a spin-off of the newest season, "Pokémon the Series: XY," which is now running on Cartoon Network and which introduced Ash's newest set of traveling companions, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie. Serena is, to me, probably the most compatible female counterpart Ash has ever had. She admires and respects him and is always unfailingly supportive. She doesn't compete with him but has her own set of talents and specialties that she indulges in when the opportunities arise. He should keep her around. When they get older…who knows? Clemont is a young scientific genius and Bonnie is his gregarious little sister, not the first little kid the series has had, but certainly the most endearing. They make a great team and I hope they're all featured in the next movie as well.

Lots of new characters but idk it just seems super lame now

It was great to see a pokemon movie with Serena, Bonnie, and Clemont into it. Unfortunately, the movie keeps making the same mistakes that the other lesser Pokémon films made. It's too short! In a movie that has tons of characters that can be really annoying! It's bad when they try to cram in all of these characters in something that's so short. I am still glad to be introduced to all of these new pokemon, even though I'll probably forget them. This movie's plot features a pokemon princess (yes, really) Diancie, who has to make diamonds to stop a cocoon containing Yveltal with help from Xerneas.

Does it seem like I'm just making up words? I feel bad for not being able to keep up with them. Team Rocket do appear for awhile, so they're cool. This just tries to put in so many pokemon and I think they're like five different people that are coming after Diancie in the end. I guess since all featured pokemon in movies can use telepathy, it's not a big deal to hear them talk. The movies themselves are formulaic with Ash and the gang simply meeting some new legendary talking pokemon they have to save. The earlier films really did have variety. Not even an AmourShipping moment! *1/2

The Pokémon anime never lets up on what seems to work despite that plan not really working. For the last several entries, the films revolving around Ash and company has been average at best and sometimes falling beneath that. Only occasionally has the story been slightly above average, but that's going back to around a decade ago of films. Unfortunately, it's also getting more difficult to go on about the differences in storytelling especially when the changes feel so minimal. One would think that with a series running for so long that there could be some variety to the films but it looks like the franchise may truly be out of new ideas. This entry really feels no different from that of the past several films. The biggest change are the main protagonists...but that's been expected now. Then again so are other aspects.

The story is about a new Pokémon named Diancie (Caitlin Glass) who can create diamonds but not well. She is the princess of her kingdom that is dying and needs to replace the current diamond which acts as their power source. To do this, she must find the legendary Pokémon Xerneas (Mary O'Brady) to help make this ability stronger. On her travels she runs into Ash and friends where they decide to follow her. However, Team Rocket and a few other bandits are out looking to capture Diancie as well. Shocker. On top of that, there's Yveltal, the dark version of Xerneas who is rumored to be nearby. Anything else needs to be thrown in there? Of course, who's handling this project? None other than the Yuyama Sonoda duo. Geez, these two must really feel confident that these stories are still solid.

Let's tackle something that does work, the main characters. In the black and white seasons, Ash, Iris and Cilan's chemistry were okay but probably rank lowest so far. For the new X & Y seasons, Ash is now joined by Serena (Haven Paschall), Clemont (Mike Liscio) and his little sister Bonnie (Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld). These characters are already proving themselves to be more interesting than the last bunch. Clemont with his ill-fated self-destructive contraptions, Serena with her secret crush on Ash and Bonnie for always trying to match a girl with Clemont; the reversal of Brock's situation. They all have their quirks but are fun and goofy in their own way. The team rocket gang are still fun although they are no longer as serious as they were a couple seasons ago. Despite that, they do get more screen time here than the last few films.

However, that's kind of the extent of the engaging characters. The voice acting is fine by all cast members but the characters still don't amount to much. Caitlin Glass plays a great princess but the role of her character isn't new. Further making things a usual go to are the telepathic abilities and legendary Pokémon. It is understandable to a point that new seasons require new legendaries to keep things going...but the legendaries aren't anything to be impressed over. Xerneas is just another "life giving", "wish granting", insert the god-like term here Pokémon. As for telepathy, it seems like more and more Pokémon are able to speak English with the main characters. Can it least vary some? The other thieves looking to capture Diancie aren't memorable either, even though Marc Thompson is one of the voice actors.

Unfortunately, more could have been done to develop a portion of these characters. The amount of individuals in this story is just more than it needs to be. Animation though is still good for the quality of the franchise. No complaints there. Cinematography was taken care of again by Tatsumi Yukiwaki and now also Aya Aoshima. No reason given as to why it's needed. For music, surprisingly the US dub had its own score composed by Ed Goldfarb instead of Shinji Miyazaki even though he scored for the Japanese dub. The weird thing is that it doesn't look like there was a US album released on this...so the point of rescoring was for...what? What can be said though is that the music sounds a lot livelier and has interesting cues throughout. In some ways it sounds like something of another genre, but it works.

The general components to this entry work like viewers expect. The animation is good, the voice acting and main characters are their usual selves and the music is decent. However, those same familiarities find themselves showing up in the same bland villains, boring legendary Pokémon and generic storytelling.

As a Pokémon fan I've never seen every single Pokémon movie from the anime. The only movie I've saw was the Pokemon White movie, and it was pretty underwhelming. Pokemon Diancie and the cocoon of destruction however, is a great movie. Most Pokémon movies aren't that great, like the Pokémon Heroes film, which has some of the WORST Pokémon villains in my opinion. And the first Pokemon movie is NOT the best at all. But this one, from the XY anime, is very underrated.

I adore Diancie in this film, she is super cute and her chemistry & friendship with Ash, Pikachu, Serena, Bonnie and Clemont is so good. The animation and art style is ahead of its time, and I liked the story of it.