It’s
a mostly-stellar neo-noir, kid-friendly fantasy detective/mystery
tale that is both a wonderful introduction for Pokémon newbies and a
successful translation of an iconic kids video game to the big
screen. The film is an enjoyable movieization of a longtime global
video-game phenomenon that is campy, preposterous and for the most
part, works.
R.J. Palmer, an illustrator who made his mark with online illustrations of Pokémon characters, helped create concept designs for the movie. Nigel Phelps, production designer, bathes Ryme City in neon shades of light and rain-dampened streets. It was shot with 35MM Kodak film, which contributed to the realistic feel of fantastical images in an imaginary world.
Movie Poster of “Pokemon Detective Pikachu”
Director
Rob Letterman of “Goosebumps” fame and the other writers fill the
film with Easter eggs and admittedly were inspired by and influenced
by “Blade Runner”, Tim Burton’s “Batman” (1989) and a 1949
British film noir entitled “The Third Man”.
Dazzling, sophisticated and well-employed F/X, meticulous, right-on portrayals of the epic cast of Pokémon characters, especially the detective hero Pikachu, and generous dollops of humor overpower the at times confusing plot twists and chaotic action scenes. Its assets easily outpace the liabilities, which leads my score: 8 kernels of popcorn!
LEE’S JOKES OF THE WEEK
1)
What
does Pikachu
say when he gets
gassy while drinking milk? Answer:
I’m
Zaptos intolerant!
2) What product is the hero the Pokémon movie going to promote? Answer: Chewing gum. As in “pick a chew”.
3) What happens when you combine the Pokémon movie with the Avengers final two movies? Answer: Half of the Pokémon characters die!
A Movie Review Show that Soars Above Just Reviewing Movies
Red Wing, MN – June 7, 2019: Stephen L. Craig and Lee A. Eide, two movie fanatics from Red Wing, MN, have launched a weekly series on YouTube that is more than the title implies.
The two movie buffs review newly-released movies and then add two features not found in similar shows:
1) Stephen’s Weekly Recommendation – the brother of well-known entertainer Deborah S. Craig, best known for her role on “The Blacklist”, starring as Marcy Park in the long-running Broadway musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and creator of web cult hit Yoga For Black People (over a million hits), Stephen recommends a product, service or content not usually related to movies. Examples: “Seinfeld” and Nintendo Switch plus two men’s fragrances.
2) Lee’s Joke(s) of the Week – Jokes relate to the movie the duo reviews. For example, in episode #3 (www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_xQxJGaLnow)in which they review “Pet Sematary”, Lee tells two dead-cat jokes plus a regular cat joke.
“We go to so many movies and frequently have very different opinions of them so we thought, ‘Hey, why not start our own show on YouTube’”, says Eide.
The two Wal-Mart cashiers videotape each episode on Craig’s home computer. Some weeks, due to scheduling issues, they cannot do a show, but their goal is to complete one episode per week.
The highlight of their seven-episode run is the 5th show in which the two plus special guest David Rasmussen give their takes on the epic finale of the Avengers saga. The episode includes a magic trick by Craig and bonus jokes (a total of nine) by Eide.
The show’s tag line is “A show for reel (real) movie fans” and the two end each episode with “And as always, we’ll be watching…for you.”
###
Highlights
Episode #1 – CAPTAIN MARVEL
SC: “I actually have heard of the Scree (extraterrestrial race opposing the main character in the movie) from playing a game on my phone.” LE: “And then of course there is North Scree and South Scree.”
Episode #2 – DUMBO
#1: SC: “I was really looking forward to this movie. You’ve got Tim Burton directing with Danny Devito and Michael Keaton back together again and I thought this was a ‘can’t miss’ movie. But it wasn’t a ‘can’t miss’ movie.” LE: “Yeah, given all the big names involved and the source material you’d think it would be fantastic and it wasn’t. It wasn’t horrible but it could have been so much better.”
#2: SC: “The acting was lackluster. Even Michael Keaton’s acting wasn’t as good as it should have been. I thought Danny Devito did a good job.” LE: “Yeah, he normally plays a bad guy but in this one he plays a good guy and does a great job whereas I thought Michael Keaton (as a villain) was out of his element. I think Christopher Walken or Jack Nicholson would have been a better choice for the villain.”
#3: SC: “The animated original had a lot more love in it.” LE: “Yes, I mean next to Bambi’s mother dying, the separation of Dumbo from his mother is the most famously sad scene in Disney history and this movie didn’t devote enough time and attention to it.”
#4: In re the ‘pink elephants on parade’ scene – SC: “I would have thought do the scene fully or don’t do it all. That’s my opinion.” LE: “Yeah, I mean given his penchant for the macabre, it’s kind of surprising he didn’t do the scene fully…He kind of wussed out.” SC: “When you’re an artist, sometimes you’re going to offend people.” LE: “In the pink elephant scene, if you really want to be edgy, you would have done it more like the original. But he (Timothy Burton) didn’t do it, and I think it’s a bad choice.”
#5: LE: “No spoilers but the ending was was upbeat, spectacular, and visually stunning. You’ll leave the theater very happy.”
#6: LE: “It was an ambitious, visually stunning expansion of the darker, racist movie but lackluster acting and plot issues prevented it from being a 9.5 or 10.”
Episode #3 – PET SEMATARY
#1 – SC: “Jete Laurence does an outstanding job. People should go to this movie just to see her act.” LE: “She plays a fantastic reanimated, creepy, conniving daughter.”
#2: SC: “John Lithgow does wonderful job as the next-door neighbor. He says the one line, ‘Sometimes dead is better’, perfectly.” LE: “I agree. I also loved Fred Gywnn in the original movie. He did it with more of an Eastern accent: ‘Sometimes…dead is better.’”
#3: SC: “I really, really, really liked the ending.” LE: “Me too. I think by having the older sister being killed instead of the younger son the story veers off in a different, more evil, and interesting direction…The ending is dark, delicious…and delightful.”
Episode #4 – SHAZAM
#1 – SC: “One of the first things Billy Batson does after he gets superpowers is to go buy beer.” LE: “If I suddenly got superpowers at that age I’d do the same thing.”
#2 – SC: “Okay, which would you rather have, invisibility or the power to fly?” LE: “Okay I have flip flopped on this one. I’d rather have invisibility so I can be that fly on the wall. I figure I can already fly because we have Jetpacks but as far as I know, no one’s invented a way to become invisible. SC: “It’s close but I’ll take flying.” LE: “We can work together. You can have the aerial view while I’m on the ground checking things out.”
#3 — SC: “I give it 8.5 popcorns. How about you, Lee?” LE: “I’m gonna see your 8.5 and raise it to 10!” SC: “Wow, our first perfect score.” LE: “And maybe the last.” Fist bump ensues.
Episode #5 – AVENGERS: ENDGAME
#1 – SC: “Early in the movie there’s a lot of drama but not very much action.” LE: “They had to devise a pretty complex plan (to retrieve the Infinity Stones) so there is a lot of intellectual stuff going on so it’s gonna be slower paced…But it sets up what happens in the 2nd half of the movie, which is almost non-stop action.”
#2 – SC: “I wrote down in my notes that was more than a movie. It was an experience.” DR: “Yeah, the experience of a lifetime.” LE: “It was like Marvel Comics created a VR ride and it sucked you into their universe.”
#3 – LE: “It definitely didn’t feel like a three-hour movie. I thought the pacing was great. For the finale of a huge franchise like this is you needed all the time to do things right.” DR: “I would love to go back and watch this movie again to see what I missed…because that movie was huge.”
#4 – After looking up Metacritic rating (77): SC: “You know what guys, I’m gonna say this: You guys are wrong!”
Episode #6 – POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU
#1 – SC: “At the beginning, I thought some of the acting was bad.” LE: “In general, I thought the acting was fine..but in the beginning it was, ah, uneven is probably the best way to put it.”
#2 – SC: “I thought as Pikachu Ryan Reynolds did a fantastic job.” LE: “Yeah, a cleaned-up Deadpool persona.” SC: “I loved Mr. Mime.” LE: “My two favorite characters are Torterra and Mr. Mime. Real-life mimes irritate the heck out of me but this one was funny.”
#3 – SC: “The original story of Pikachu is that of Ash and Pikachu. And I thought that story would have been better for newcomers because that way you would have met Pikachu and Ash and then how they met new Pokeman characters along the way. That’s the story everyone knows so I don’t know why they didn’t do that. Instead this a story from the video game “Detective Pikachu”. I don’t know how closely it follows the story but it is based on that game for the Nintendo DS.” LE: “Yeah I think the director Rob (Letterman) really wanted to do a film noir type movie that would appeal more to the adult audience while the main focus of the movie is on the Pokemon characters. In general I think he does a good job of balancing the two.”
#4 – LE: “Awesome F/X, a lot of humor. So basically it’s a very enjoyable movie but it does have issues.
#5 – SC: “It’s the end of the episode which means it’s time for Lee’s Joke of the Week.” LE: “Okay Stephen probably had the funniest thing with the whale vomit but I’ll give it a shot.”
Episode #7 – ALADDIN
#1 – LE: “This movie didn’t need to be remade but Disney knew they could make a lot of money on it. Money talks.”
#2 – SC: “I thought the lighting for the song ‘It’s a Whole New World” was poor. And the places they show aren’t that interesting. In the animated original it shows exotic places like Paris but in this one it shows like shots of the ocean. The whole scene is really dark and boring.” LE: “Apparently Disney’s new world is dark and boring.”
#3 – In re Metacritic rating of 86% and Rotten Tomatoes audience rating of 94%: “I’m not usually a big conspiracy guy but there’s something going on here. I think Disney hired a bunch of reviewers.” SC: “I think the reason it did so well is an enjoyable movie, it is a fun movie. I mean being a reviewer I was pickier someone just watching the movie on average. I thought some of the acting was poor but the average viewer isn’t gonna pay attention to that so that’s why the audience scores are so high.” LE: “I still think there’s something fishy going on.
A Movie Review Show that Soars Above Just Reviewing Movies
Red
Wing, MN – June 7, 2019: Stephen
L. Craig and Lee A. Eide, two movie fanatics from Red Wing, MN, have
launched a weekly series on
YouTube that is more than the title implies.
The two movie buffs review
newly-released movies and then add two features not found in similar
shows:
1)
Stephen’s
Weekly Recommendation
– the brother of well-known entertainer Deborah S. Craig, best
known for her role on “The Blacklist”, starring as Marcy Park in
the long-running Broadway musical The
25th
Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and
creator of web cult hit Yoga
For Black People
(over a million hits), Stephen recommends a product, service or
content not usually related to movies. Examples:
“Seinfeld” and Nintendo Switch plus two men’s fragrances.
2)
Lee’s
Joke(s) of the Week
– Jokes relate to the movie the duo reviews. For example, in
episode #3 (www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_xQxJGaLnow)in
which they review “Pet Sematary”,
Lee
tells
two dead-cat jokes plus a regular cat joke.
“We
go to so many movies and frequently have very different opinions of
them so we thought, ‘Hey, why not start our own show on YouTube’”,
says Eide.
The
two Wal-Mart cashiers videotape each episode on Craig’s home
computer. Some
weeks, due to scheduling issues, they cannot do a show, but their
goal is to complete one episode per week.
The
highlight of their seven-episode run is the 5th
show in which the two plus special guest David Rasmussen give their
takes on the epic finale of the Avengers saga. The episode includes a
magic trick by Craig and bonus jokes (a total of nine) by Eide.
The show’s tag line is “A
show for reel (real) movie fans” and the two end each episode with
“And as always, we’ll be watching…for you.”
###
Highlights
Episode #1 – CAPTAIN MARVEL
SC:
“I actually have heard of the Scree (extraterrestrial race opposing
the main character in the movie) from playing a game on my phone.”
LE: “And then of course there is North Scree and South Scree.”
Episode #2 – DUMBO
Dumbo Remake
#1:
SC: “I was really looking forward to this movie. You’ve got Tim
Burton directing with Danny Devito and Michael Keaton back together
again and I thought this was a ‘can’t miss’ movie. But it
wasn’t a ‘can’t miss’ movie.” LE: “Yeah, given all the
big names involved and the source material you’d think it would be
fantastic and it wasn’t. It wasn’t horrible but it could have
been so much better.”
#2:
SC: “The acting was lackluster. Even Michael Keaton’s acting
wasn’t as good as it should have been. I thought Danny Devito did a
good job.” LE: “Yeah, he normally plays a bad guy but in this one
he plays a good guy and does a great job whereas I thought Michael
Keaton (as a villain) was out of his element. I think Christopher
Walken or Jack Nicholson would have been a better choice for the
villain.”
#3:
SC: “The animated original had a lot more love in it.” LE: “Yes,
I mean next to Bambi’s mother dying, the separation of Dumbo from
his mother is the most famously sad scene in Disney history and this
movie didn’t devote enough time and attention to it.”
#4:
In re the ‘pink elephants on parade’ scene – SC: “I would
have thought do the scene fully or don’t do it all. That’s my
opinion.” LE: “Yeah, I mean given his penchant for the macabre,
it’s kind of surprising he didn’t do the scene fully…He kind of
wussed out.” SC: “When you’re an artist, sometimes you’re
going to offend people.” LE: “In the pink elephant scene, if you
really want to be edgy, you would have done it more like the
original. But he (Timothy Burton) didn’t do it, and I think it’s
a bad choice.”
#5:
LE: “No spoilers but the ending was was upbeat, spectacular, and
visually stunning. You’ll leave the theater very happy.”
#6:
LE: “It was an ambitious, visually stunning expansion of the
darker, racist movie but lackluster acting and plot issues prevented
it from being a 9.5 or 10.”
Episode #3 – PET SEMATARY#1
Bad Kitty in Pet Sematary
#1: SC: “Jete Laurence does an outstanding job. People should go to this movie just to see her act.” LE: “She plays a fantastic reanimated, creepy, conniving daughter.”
#2:
SC: “John Lithgow does wonderful job as the next-door neighbor. He
says the one line, ‘Sometimes dead is better’, perfectly.” LE:
“I agree. I also loved Fred Gywnn in the original movie. He did it
with more of an Eastern accent: ‘Sometimes…dead is better.’”
#3:
SC: “I really, really, really liked the ending.” LE: “Me too. I
think by having the older sister being killed instead of the younger
son the story veers off in a different, more evil, and interesting
direction…The ending is dark, delicious…and delightful.”
Episode
#4 – SHAZAM
Shazam!
#1
– SC: “One of the first things Billy Batson does after he gets
superpowers is to go buy beer.” LE: “If I suddenly got
superpowers at that age I’d do the same thing.”
#2
– SC: “Okay, which would you rather have, invisibility or the
power to fly?” LE: “Okay I have flip flopped on this one. I’d
rather have invisibility so I can be that fly on the wall. I figure I
can already fly because we have Jetpacks but as far as I know, no
one’s invented a way to become invisible. SC: “It’s close but
I’ll take flying.” LE: “We can work together. You can have the
aerial view while I’m on the ground checking things out.”
#3
— SC: “I give it 8.5 popcorns. How about you, Lee?” LE: “I’m
gonna see your 8.5 and raise it to 10!” SC: “Wow, our first
perfect score.” LE: “And maybe the last.” Fist bump ensues.
Episode
#5 – AVENGERS: ENDGAME
Avengers: Endgame Poster
#1 – SC: “Early in the movie
there’s a lot of drama but not very much action.” LE: “They had
to devise a pretty complex plan (to retrieve the Infinity Stones) so
there is a lot of intellectual stuff going on so it’s gonna be
slower paced…But it sets up what happens in the 2nd half
of the movie, which is almost non-stop action.”
#2 – SC: “I wrote down in my
notes that was more than a movie. It was an experience.” DR: “Yeah,
the experience of a lifetime.” LE: “It was like Marvel Comics
created a VR ride and it sucked you into their universe.”
#3 – LE: “It definitely
didn’t feel like a three-hour movie. I thought the pacing was
great. For the finale of a huge franchise like this is you needed all
the time to do things right.” DR: “I would love to go back and
watch this movie again to see what I missed…because that movie was
huge.”
#4 – After looking up
Metacritic rating (77): SC: “You know what guys, I’m gonna say
this: You guys are wrong!”
Episode
#6 – POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU
Pokemon Detective Pikachu
#1
– SC: “At the beginning, I thought some of the acting was bad.”
LE: “In general, I thought the acting was fine..but in the
beginning it was, ah, uneven is probably the best way to put it.”
#2
– SC: “I thought as Pikachu Ryan Reynolds did a fantastic job.”
LE: “Yeah, a cleaned-up Deadpool persona.” SC: “I loved
Mr. Mime.” LE: “My two favorite characters are Torterra and Mr.
Mime. Real-life mimes irritate the heck out of me but this one was
funny.”
#3
– SC: “The original story of Pikachu is that of Ash and
Pikachu. And I thought that story would have been better for
newcomers because that way you would have met Pikachu and Ash and
then how they met new Pokeman characters along the way. That’s the
story everyone knows so I don’t know why they didn’t do that.
Instead this a story from the video game “Detective Pikachu”. I
don’t know how closely it follows the story but it is based on that
game for the Nintendo DS.” LE: “Yeah I think the director Rob
(Letterman) really wanted to do a film noir type movie that would
appeal more to the adult audience while the main focus of the movie
is on the Pokemon characters. In general I think he does a good job
of balancing the two.”
#4
– LE: “Awesome F/X, a lot of humor. So basically it’s a very
enjoyable movie but it does have issues.
#5
– SC: “It’s the end of the episode which means it’s time for
Lee’s Joke of the Week.” LE: “Okay Stephen probably had the
funniest thing with the whale vomit but I’ll give it a shot.”
Episode #7 – ALADDIN
Aladdin 2019
#1 – LE: “This movie didn’t need to be remade but Disney knew they could make a lot of money on it. Money talks.”
#2 – SC: “I thought the lighting for the song ‘It’s a Whole New World” was poor. And the places they show aren’t that interesting. In the animated original it shows exotic places like Paris but in this one it shows like shots of the ocean. The whole scene is really dark and boring.” LE: “Apparently Disney’s new world is dark and boring.”
#3 – In re Metacritic rating of 86% and Rotten Tomatoes audience rating of 94%: “I’m not usually a big conspiracy guy but there’s something going on here. I think Disney hired a bunch of reviewers.” SC: “I think the reason it did so well is an enjoyable movie, it is a fun movie. I mean being a reviewer I was pickier someone just watching the movie on average. I thought some of the acting was poor but the average viewer isn’t gonna pay attention to that so that’s why the audience scores are so high.” LE: “I still think there’s something fishy going on.”
###
That’s it, ladies and gentlemen, the end of my first blog post on THE MOVIE REVIEW SHOW site. Thanks for reading. And of course, watch our show!
The Movie Review Show starring Stephen Craig and Lee Eide 