Director Rob Letterman
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton
Rated PG
Score 4.5/6

When ace detective Harry Goodman goes mysteriously missing, prompting his 21-year-old son Tim to find out what happened. Aiding in the investigation is Harry’s former Pokémon partner, Detective Pikachu: a hilariously wise-cracking, adorable super-sleuth who is a puzzlement even to himself.

Okay, I liked this one and perhaps just perhaps I should have had my act together and seen this one on the big screen while it was at the cinema because this is a visually lovely movie. For those of you who might not have known Detective Pikachu serves as a loose adaptation of the 2016 video game of the same name. This is probably the first decent ‘video game’ movie that has been released.
I suppose the big difference between Detective Pikachu and the other Pokémon movies I’ve watched (apart from this being live action) is that even with its more emotional moments Detective Pikachu doesn’t deal with them with the same sugariness that the animated movies seemed to have done.
After seeing Justice Smith’s performance I would have to say that my opinion of his work as an actor has changed, considering I have such a varied response to his work I think I might have to watch a few more his movies to get a better idea of his abilities as an actor. Smith’s character Tim Goodman and Reynolds’ Pikachu made for an interesting buddy cop duo. I also enjoyed Kathryn Newton’s performance as Lucy Stevens. I was a little surprised to see Bill Nighy cast in this but he brought the kind of performance that you would expect from him.

On a personal note I loved the scenes with the Mr. Mime.

Oh yes and I loved the Detective Pikachu ‘leak’ by Ryan Reynolds and the becoming Pikachu featurette.