Pokémon Detective Pikachu Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

3. The Tone Is Wildly Inconsistent

Though Detective Pikachu certainly nails the abject weirdness of humans and Pokémon co-existing in something resembling our physical world, the actual tone of the movie never manages to strike a consistent balance between sentimentality, seriousness and unnecessary crudeness.

Tim's search for his missing dad lays the saccharine family melodrama on with an aggressive, offputting thickness that doesn't feel at all earned - because the audience is never really inspired to care much about Tim.

And despite the inherent silliness of the story, the central narrative takes itself weirdly seriously at times, bringing down a mood that should be consistently light-on-its-feet and frothy.

But above all else, for a film aimed at children, there are some rather dubious jokes that don't really land, pertaining to cocaine use, masturbation and, uh, "forced confessions."

Though most of these gags will fly clean over kids' heads, this really didn't feel like a movie that needed to go to these places to win over adults (most of whom have likely been playing Pokémon for decades).