Every production studio knows if they have a successful franchise property, no matter how well a story could be ended, they’d rather continue pumping out more content. This is the typical route, and most of the time the formula runs dry fast. In the late 1990s, Japan’s Pocket Monsters, better known as Pokemon in the States was a big hit with western TV audiences. When the first theatrical film came out it only made the appetite for fans wanting more. The first theatrical film was almost thought of being a final send off to the series, but that never happened of course. Shortly after Pokémon’s second season was about wrapping up, came the second theatrical film. Despite it performing moderately well, it’s surprising that it even did so. If fans thought the first film had a bad plot, it’s even worse here.
The story picks up with Ash Ketchum, Misty and his new found add on Tracey, traveling to one of the orange islands, which was explained in the TV show. While traveling though, a mysterious character not even named in the film begins to disrupt the peaceful harmony surrounding them. With that said, it’s up to Ash and friends to discover the secrets to this disruption and how it ties to the greater wellbeing of people and pokemon. Generic sounding right? Well that’s because it is. The plot to this film is almost nowhere to be found, which is quite sad considering the first theatrical movie was already running on fumes. Essentially, this “movie” should be treated as an extended episode because it adds very little to any character within the franchise’s universe. There’s just one new thing fans of the show will learn about Ash after the end credits roll, but this doesn’t change the main character’s life in any way after that.
The team behind this film was the same behind the first movie, which is shocking. You’d think they would see how they could improve from their original mistakes. Apparently, Michael Haigney as director and co-writing with Norman J. Grossfeld didn’t change anything. Unlike how Mewtwo had a butchered backstory that wasn’t translated well from the Japanese to English dub, the villain known as the collector (Neil Stewart) contributes nothing to the story. There’s just nothing interesting about the character, nor is the audience given any kind of history on this individual. He’s just some weirdo who lives on some flying contraption in the sky. There’s no depth to the antagonist’s motivation. There’s also other additional characters like Maren (Tara Sands), Melody (Amy Birnbaum) and Slowking (Nathan Price), but again they don’t appear later on in the show.
The one of two things fans cannot fault this movie for is the voice acting. Even though the characters in general do not receive any kind of meaningful development, the performances from all cast members is as good as it has been. Ikue Ôtani as Pikachu, Veronica Taylor as Ash, Rachael Lillis as Jessie and Misty, Eric Stuart as James and Brock and Ted Lewis as Tracey all do fine with the dialog given and how they speak. It’s just unfortunate that there wasn’t more for the characters to do aside from getting caught up in shenanigans and actually have an interesting story to get involved in. Being that it was originally written by Takeshi Shudo, who also wrote for the first film, it’s probably fair to assume the story had more to it than what is seen in the English dub. Thanks for always meddling 4Kids.
Strangely again, Hisao Shirai is credited as the director of photography. Perhaps this was more for storyboarding? Yet there’s already a credit for a storyboard artist…so it’s unclear. What can be said though is the animation looks great. There are parts that contain CGI, but much of it is still classic animation that can be appreciated on screen. Credit to Sayuri Ichiishi as the chief animation director leading the way. Lastly the music is another unfortunate aspect to this feature. Produced by returning composers John Loeffler, Ralph Schuckett and additionally John Lissauer, the music just doesn’t hold up like past score made for the first movie. Here the music is adequate for the scene but doesn’t produce the same kind of emotions. This is most likely related to how bland the story is. Sometimes music is able to make up for a bad plot, but it just doesn’t cut it here.
Weirdly uneventful for only being the second theatrical pokemon film, this entry barely has a story. The voice actors all do nicely and animation looks great. But that doesn’t atone for the almost nonexistent character development, stock music and questionable plot.
Points Earned -->3:10
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