Pokemon: The First Movie Review By Rashad Moore
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I remember saying earlier in my review of the Pokemon Television Series that "Pokemon is evil, but the anime is good." At first I ignored the fact that technically, the franchise is slowly taking over the world. Having never seen "Pokemon: The First Movie." when it was out in theaters, I decided to finally sit down and watch it on video, after being driven to the point of insanity of seeing Pokemon merchandise mangled by little children, shouting the opening theme's words, "Gotta Catch em' all!" over and over, I found the last copy available. That was no surprise due to the movie becoming such a hit at the box office.(Quite a first, by the way. An anime becoming a box-office hit.) I came in as a devout animefan and moviegoer, and I came out feeling disappointed and even depressed. Warner Bros. chopped the movie up so bad that some bad American Dub Sailor Moon memories started to back into my head....(Heck, this movie was chopped to bits even worse than that.)

The movie which is composed of the first two Pokemon movies, "Pikachu's Summer Vacation" and "Mewtwo Strikes Back" were both combined into the movie. While "Summer Vacation" is a cute, colorful (and somewhat distrubing) short that looks into the day in the life of Pokemon that will appeal to the smaller fans, "Mewtwo Strikes Back" is a darker, moody, and more forboding tale in the Pokemon Saga.

Pikachu's Summer Vacation:

The first film(which is actually the first movie in the Pokemon movie trilogy.) is strictly for the smallest of Pokemon fans(namely your annoying little brother of sister who won't put that Pikachu stuffed toy down.) There's not much in the way of a storyline, just that Ash, Misty, and Brock(who show up at the beginning and end of the film with their faces never shown) drop their Pokemon off at a resort to be studied in their habitats, leading to some extreme Pokemon cuteness.

Even though this portion of the movie is straight Pokemon cuteness aimed straight at children, I ended up enjoying this more than I did "Mewtwo Strikes Back"( Maybe it's because I have a soft side for japanese cuteness, or that it was more hopeful than the drenched in darkness tone and chopped script of the second film.) It's no surprise that other audiences won't be able to stomach this as I did. But the film really could've done without the freaky cuts between scenes where they show numerous Pokemon(such as Chancey and Jigglypuff) dance across the screen, which probably ranks as the weirdest and psychedelic scenes ever to grace a movie screen. This film also introduces two new Pokemon Snuball(which looks like a tiny, deformed bulldog) and Marill from Pokemon Gold and Silver.

What really would've made this short film better, if they subtitled what the Pokemon were saying as done in one episode of the TV Series(when everyone's Pokemon were stranded on an island.) But if you don't have the stomach for such extreme cuteness, skip right ahead to Mewtwo Stirkes Back.

Mewtwo Strikes Back:

Based on the events from the TV Series, "Mewtwo Strikes Back" is a darker, more serious tale in the Pokemon Series. The movie tells the Frankenstein-style story of Mewtwo, a genetically bred Pokemon who was spawned from Mew, a mysterious prehistoric Pokemon, whose fossils were found by a group a scientists(led by someone who looks shockingly similar to Franken Von Fulgar from Giant Robo.) Unaware of his true purpose in life, Mewtwo is enraged to learn that he was created to serve only humans, and eventually kills his creators. He runs into Giovanni, the boss of Team Rocket who offers him to boost his powers in exchange for his assistance, Mewtwo escapes when he learns that he is only a slave to him, and decides to hold a Pokemon tournament against the best trainers in the world only to clone their Pokemon in his own plan for world domination.

I was excited to learn that "Mewtew Strikes Back" was a darker, more intense setting for the movie. Being a hard-core animefan, I came in expecting a more mature-action oriented film, and indeed the second movie gets off to a strong start. It actually has a larger plot than that of the TV Series. But the G-rating for the film was a warning, 20 minutes of the Japanese Version were cut in order to cater to younger audiences (no doubt to get rid of the more violent moments of the film.) and the dialogue was horribly rewritten, laden with tons of lame jokes ("I didn't know vikings still exist! Yeah, in Minnesota.") especially with Team Rocket, whose antics on the movie when compared to the TV show seem horribly restricted and humorless. Team Rocket just wasn't Team Rocket this time around. Mewtwo Strikes Back sadly lacks the humor of the TV show which made it so enjoyable to watch. I guess this was to keep in touch with the more serious theme of the film. But thanks to shoddy rewritting of the script(which tries to be light-hearted in such a dark film.) any sense of drama is severely limited. And then theres the action scenes, there were hardly any worth mentioning at all(except for one scene when Ash tries to save Pikachu form getting captured by Mewtwo's pokeballs.) I expected this to a fast-paced film, but the overall message of the film which was probably changed from the Japanese Version(the idea that fighting solves nothing.) slows the film to a crawl, mostly on the note of Mewtwo's search for his own meaning in life. Oh, and I won't even mention the dragging, over emotional and unrealistically sappy climax. Calling it a "cop-out" would be an understatement.

I do have to give the film credit, Mewtwo Strikes Back was well-directed and animated. The character movements are much more fluid amist the dark and depressing setting of Mewtwo's Island. There were also some brief but nifty CG effects thrown into the mix. The music is a way different story, the original score was changed from the Japanese Version(which in my book is a criminal offense.) the utterly lame and lukewarm score from John Lasster did little to match the film, but the ultimate insult came the sample of the song "Brother, my Brother" played during the climax, which seems too out of place in conjuction to the movie. (And also a lame marketing ploy for the lame pop soundtrack.)

In some ways, I found Pokemon: The First Movie as depressing a film as the apocalyptic and sadistic "End of Evangelion." not that everyone dies at the end, but what good-old American editing can do to ruin the original vision of it's creators. All the characters seemed like a cold shell of their former selves and the misplaced script makes one want to forget such an experience. It's a much better idad to find a decent fansub of the original, (or Warner Bros. should wise up and release an uncut version.) But as Mewtwo says and the end, "It's best to just go home now and forget this entire occurance. "You should do the same.

Available from Warner Bros. Image shown is not created by atek studios.   Review by Rashad Moore. April 2000.