Well, it felt a lot like the first three. Then, for some reason or another, the studio got a new person to write, and we suddenly had clear-cut villains, usually some sort of Team Rocket super-agent or two (which is a BAD thing, narratologically speaking), the Legendary Pokémon featured stopped talking, and what we were left with was ordinary, ho-hum storytelling, even more so than the first three movies. It felt this way up to Destination Deoxys, though I didn't see any of them between that and Manaphy, so I wouldn't know how the Lucario one went.
In relation to other movies, however, The Rise of Darkrai is pretty standard, still. It just simply has a strong Pokémon theme going around it, so it must be watched with a certain mindset to enjoy it, which it looks like most of you did. Like most anime movies based on a pre-existing franchise, it's built for the established fans already in that it provides no context--the viewer is assumed to already know the overlying plot of the movie. It cannot be jumped into by newcomers. (For instance, the One Piece movie FUNimation recently released, even though it summarizes the events of the Alabasta arc, will make no sense to someone green to One Piece, as it explains no character histories and lacks any character introductions.) If you didn't know, in this case, that Dialga controls time and Palkia space, or that they're complementary Legendary Pokémon; or that Pokémon Trainers carry Pokémon around in Poké Balls, when they can be released and recalled at any time (and believe me, plenty of people don't know even this), then The Rise of Darkrai will completely lose them.
Stripping the story down to its barest, it is still lacks noteworthiness. The story is that two forces that absolutely hate each other, which destroys everything in thier path, have moved too close to home. A moderating force tries in vain to stop them from quarreling, and it's only from intervention through a deus ex machina that the forces in conflict come to a truce. While it's not always a deus ex machina that provides the resolution (and a deus ex machina is considered a writing flaw, but more on that later), countless stories have been written that concern this, as it's a simple plot that can be applied to any time period, any location, and any context. While the antagonistic motive isn't clear, the threatening forces are.
In addition, many things in this movie felt contrived. The biggest thing is that Godie's giant machine happened to be in Alamos Town. Had the fight between Palkia and Dialga occured anywhere else, our heroes would have failed, and the city would have dissipated. Another major thing is Oración. There is no explanation as to how Alicia composed the song, why it has soothing properties, or how Godie's machine has the disc for it. Was it some sort of premonition Alicia had that it could bring peace between Dialga and Palkia? Did Darkrai help in composing it, as he clearly has detailed knowledge of Dialga and Palkia even in Alicia's time? It should have been obvious from the moment Alice put a stop to the fight over the Pecha Berry in the garden by playing Oración that this song would be needed to stop Dialga and Palkia. It's also awfully convenient that in the same town lies the composer to the ultimate song to calm down Pokémon. Together, this essentially amounts to Osama bin Laden showing his face in Washington DC: You know he'll be in major trouble because of where he's stumbled onto.
It was also made too obvious that Tonio is the audience surrogate. It's excusable in shows like Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, which doesn't take itself too seriously and frequently breaks the fourth wall, but this story seems to be more serious than the show. Tonio acts as a walking clock for when the climax will occur, thanks to his computer he carries around. We, as the audience must accept without question his readings on space and time, and he never explains the anomalies--just that they exist and how extreme they are. His computer readings make no sense either. Of course, it's probably difficult to give an explanation to things as complex as space and time, downright impossible to stretch the laws of physics enough to explain the workings of the plot, and completely unnecessary on the kids this movie is targeted towards. I mean...Pikachu already defies many laws of physics. Any explanations to the plot's events would be the equivalent of, to any quantum physicist, putting a pot over his or her head and banging on it.
That being said, I actually enjoyed it...It reminded me of my days in middle school, when I'd get very excited over the first few Pokémon movies. This would probably hype kids up just as much. But the fact remains that this was built with kids as the intended audience and that the size of the Pokémon fanbase, and how Ash, Brock, Dawn, Team Rocket, and their Pokémon cannot have any character development due to this being a satellite of a continuing series, means the creative forces need not put much effort to please its viewers. I mean...I can think of ways to make a Pokémon movie story that critics WOULD probably like, but they would scare the little tykes right out of the theaters. being older than the target audience, the only way I could get into the movie is to see it through the POV of a Pokémon fan, and that's what I did. As I saw it, however, I was aware that people indifferent to seeing, say, Drifblim or Lickilicky on the big screen, or anime action, would find The Rise of Darkrai, and all other Pokémon movies a grinding bore. (With the possible exceptions of The Origin of Mewtwo and Pokémon the Movie 3, which had a greater concern for ethics regarding children than Pokémon.)
