RE: (1) Movie 14 Goodies This Weekend + PokéBeach Contest Details [12/2]
I saw the movie at the AMC at Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, WI.
With that out of the way, my thoughts on the movie. As the movies tend to go, it follows the fashion of not being in very good cannon with the series, which is actually a positive comment since I find it much easier to keep up with the movies than the show and means I don't have to catch up with the show to know what's happening in the movie. They also managed to grab a couple of very recognizable voice actors I haven't heard in a while, for example: Michael Baley, the voice of Odion from Yu-Gi-Oh in the english dub (fantastic voice). The plot of the film was actually quite catching in comparison to some earlier Pokemon movies and it was pleasing to see a lot of the plot actually was referencing the history of Resharim and Zekrom that was told in the actual games, which we don't often see in animation for Pokemon. It was also refreshing to not have a completely designated "bad guy" of the film, instead a play off of opposing viewpoints between two characters that references the historical story told and gives good reason for Resharim and Zekrom to appear instead of a forced appearance or a random "awakening" of the two. I did feel that team rocket was just lumped into the movie for the sake of them being there and were rather pointless even for comic relief this time around, but, to make up for it, we get to see a shiny Hydreigon (or shiny in general, which is rarely in any animation for Pokémon) and some amusing scenes of Victini using it's powers to give Ash and his Pokemon infallible victory to make Ash jump insanely far across a cliffside or make Tepig beat a Samurott with Ember (I laughed so hard at that). Continuing on Victini, it's back story was pretty heart wrenching, but it was a bit like other tiny legendary Pokemon featured in other movies: incredibly adorable and innocent in everything it does and enjoys chowing-down on something tasty, but very shy and cautious. Not a bad thing because, if you have a good formula that works in your movies for characters like these, use it, but I felt it could have used a little more personality to differentiate it from previous movies' tiny legendaries. Lastly, more pertaining to both movies, I like the idea they had to make two movies for Black and White instead of one and that they are both different movies. Getting back into the specifics of this movie, I enjoyed that they decided to use the ancient culture/ruins approach which felt like an homage to White Forest from Pokemon White. That's my thoughts/short critique on the movie, it has it's problems, but all movies do and it's Pokemon, so I rather enjoy mistakes for the fun of it than to rag on it and I had fun with it because it's Pokemon in general.
P.S.: SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCEEEE!!!!