POKÉMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU

★★1/2

Once upon a time, if you’d pitched the premise “Pikachu as a wise cracking detective voiced by Ryan Reynolds” amongst polite company, you would’ve been met with a hostile response. The guy who played Van Wilder and/or Green Lantern at the centre of a shameless cinematic spin-off of a brand name that connects with both kids and nostalgic adults? Sounds like Hollywood at its worst.

But, in the words of the greatest movie ever, things change, people change, hairstyles change. Reynolds has, largely on the back of his Deadpool turn, reinvented his image, charming a shit tonne of moviegoers who would’ve once wish ill upon his handsome Canadian person. Deadpool’s mocking-itself-as-it-goes-along tone has also been a key part of a movie biz sea change, where movies that sound like a terrible idea — like, obviously, 21 Jump Street or The Lego Movie, the acme models of this phenomenon — offering a running commentary on how terrible an idea they are.

And, it’s true. Pokémon Detective Pikachu sounds like a terrible idea. Its wholly unironic Wikipedia page (sample: “Diplo appears as himself, the Pokémon universe version of the DJ who performs at Sebastian’s Pokémon arena”), describes it as an “urban fantasy mystery film”, which is how no one would ever describe it. It’s far worse things: a movie adapted from a video game (those always do well); a live action update of a classic animated title; a shameless exercise in cross promotional branding; and a big budget CGI spectacle tent pole pic made to capitalise on a recognisable IP.

Still, changing times mean it arrives not to a climate of hostility, but one of acceptance, maybe even anticipation. In an age of runamok memedom, Pikachu with the voice of Deadpool feels like something dreamt up online, not in a boardroom (also dreamt up online: the Detective Pikachu trailer’s own memedom). But, ultimately, when watching the film, I wondered what this journey — from ‘this sounds like a terrible idea’ to ‘actually I will watch this movie’ — really represented. A triumph, obviously, for Hollywood marketeers, whose job it is to convince people to watch things that are terrible ideas. But not a moment in toiling at the film critic coalface that really carries any meaning.

Because, essentially, this is just a meaningless motion picture product, a 100-minute long gewgaw that’ll entertain kids, parents, and semi-ironic nostalgia seekers whilst they’re munching their popcorn, then evaporate from their memory — and the pop-cultural ether - by, like, the time that Aladdin opens in two weeks.

This isn’t to say it’s bad, just that it’s a more a consumable thing than the kind of cinematic experience that stays with you. Once you’ve felt the thrill of seeing 3D CGI-rendered Pokémon living and chilling amongst humans in a neon-lit neo-noir metropolis — as if Jigglypuff has just walked into Blade Runner’s Los Angeles — then there’s a whole story that has to be erected around that great visual.

And, so, here’s Justice Smith, last seen running away from dinosaurs in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, playing a wholesome kid. In case you were wondering if he should be our hero, his surname is literally Goodman. He’s sadly orphaned when his absent father, a cop living amongst Pokémon, is vapourised in a fiery crash. In an artful exposition dump by way of mock-vintage train-headrest-screen tourist video, we learn he’s about to land in Ryme City, where people and Pokémon hang out at the same steam-billowing noodle stands in dark alleys, and where there really is a black market underground Pokémon battle club that Diplo apparently DJs at (gotta make that $28 mill a year somehow).

This city’s the dream of Bill Nighy, a seemingly-benevolent billionaire whose third act heel turn to rapacious-capitalist-playing-God villain couldn’t be more obviously foreshadowed. His dickhole son is You’re The Worst’s Chris Geere, which is, at the very least, is a fine piece of casting. Getting to the bottom of father and son’s shadowy mega corporation piles daddy issues on top of daddy issues: Smith working through his relationship to his own father as he sets out — with that wise cracking private dick Pikachu (who, in a Mr Ed-worthy trope, only Smith can hear talking), plus Kathryn Newton’s plucky reporter and her paired-up Psyduck — in pursuit of truth.

Along the way, the film shuffles through a deck of different moods: from comedy to toy selling, dead parent emotional catharsis to grand CGI set pieces, peaking with a giant-inflatable-Pokémon-balloons-and-downtown-destruction climactic battle that feels on loan from a superhero movie. It never really quite coheres, but never becomes particularly bothersome either.

Fans might lament the fact that the Pokémon take a backseat for much of the narrative, and that, for an exercise in grand world-building and brand-burnishing, there’s only really a handful of the pocket monsters represented. But they’ll still show up, ‘trailer engagement’ having long ago given a green light to a Detective Pikachu sequel. It’s news that most will greet with a shrug. This film is fine, the next one might be too. For all those hoping for another video game movie disaster, though? Hey, Sonic The Hedgehog is only four months away.