Why do I keep having to see such awful movies?
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
With its incomprehensible plot, flat visual style and indecipherably mixed messages (violence is good; no, wait, violence is bad!), this movie seems chiefly to be an excuse to sell even more trading cards.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Carrie Rickey
Essentially, the film functions as a holiday catalog, introducing fans to a new Pokemon whose effigy they can collect in trading cards.
Strictly a kids' movie, but parents may be relieved to sit back and enjoy the fact that for two full hours, they won't have to hear the kids asking them to buy any more Pokemon trading cards.
Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector
By the time the fighting between clones and their originals turned to fraternal bonding, I was quite moved, even blissed out.
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
An unoriginal warming over of a skimpy Japanese production that has been re-edited, rescored and rewritten for American tots and padded out to feature length with a plotless short called "Pikachu's Vacation."
Plays a little like a pacifistic variation on Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon."
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
It's just a sound-and-light show, linked to the marketing push for Pokemon in general.
TV Guide Magazine by Steve Simels
This totally sucks.
San Francisco Examiner by Wesley Morris
The film is obviously a long-form episode of a show better digested in 22-minute segments.