Gotta Catch ‘Em All: A Detective Pikachu Review

Whatever movie I saw first after seeing Avengers: Endgame was doomed, in my mind. Endgame was so good on so many levels that it would have been impossible for the next movie I saw to make any real impact on me. Hell, the movie I saw directly before it- Shazam!- hasn’t held up as well in my memory post-Endgame.

So it is probably a very good thing that the very next movie I went to theaters for was purely a nostalgia-driven excursion that I had no expectation of being a mind-blowing experience. I went and saw Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything Pokémon-related. I can’t tell you the last time I saw the television show, and the last movie I saw was Pokémon: The Movie 2000. Of course, that doesn’t mean I have been absent from the franchise; earlier this year I binge-played Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu, and I still pick up packs of cards every now and then. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

You see, when I was growing up- especially in my middle-school years- Pokémon was a major part of my life, along with Harry Potter and Digimon (and, for the record, I do think Digimon was better… at least in the narrative story… their video games sucked). I had all the games, I had the cards, I watched the show. I even had Ash’s hat, and an electronic Pokédex (it only counted to 151). It was one of…