Pokémon: Detective Pikachu Trailer Reactions - 5 Ups & 3 Downs
1. The Human Element Seems Dull
As is a frequent problem with effects-heavy movies such as this, it really feels like the human element isn't terribly interesting.
We're introduced to Justice Smith's protagonist Tim Goodman, who becomes Pikachu's partner as he attempts to track down his missing dad, which honestly sounds overly formulaic and generic.
You can certainly argue that a simplistic premise is required to make the film's obvious weirdness more palatable to the mainstream, but nothing we see here about Tim makes him seem terribly interesting.
It doesn't help that Smith recently stunk up the joint as the irritating comic relief in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. He seems a lot less irritating here, to be fair, but not much more interesting, sadly.
As for the other major human, Kathryn Newton will play the female lead Lucy Stevens, who joins Tim and Pikachu and brings a Psyduck along for the ride. She barely does anything in the trailer, so fans will have to wait for the next one to hopefully find out some more about her.
Obviously the film needs some sort of human engagement to tie the CGI components together, but so far it looks like this aspect is going to fire incredibly broad.
And with these quibble out of the way, here's why Pokémon: Detective Pikachu should actually have you excited...