Plot: Ash and his friends befriend a traveling family circus who kindly take them in after suffering from dehydration in the wasteland. While traveling with them, they find out that the family are in possession of a rare Pokemon egg and are helping a Pokemon ranger named Jack Walker who is trying to keep the egg from the hands of the evil pirate known as The Phantom. The egg eventually hatches to reveal the rare Pokemon, Manaphy who believes May to be its mother. So the race is on to take Manaphy to the temple of the sea before The Phantom does.
When I saw the cover for this movie, I thought I wasn't going to like it. Manaphy looked like it was going to be another Pokemon that was cutesy for the sake of being cutesy, leading for this movie to be the first dull dud that's worse than Pokemon 4ever. But surprisingly I rather enjoyed it. Not as much as I enjoyed Pokemon Heroes and there are some problems that I realized after watching the film. But for what it was as the last movie with the advanced generation characters I had a nice time.
The heart of what sold this movie for me surprisingly enough is the relationship between Manaphy and May. Like I said earlier, Manaphy easily could have been used to be cute for the sake of being cute just like with Celebi. But it works here because the cute, baby-like behavior makes sensebecause it actually is a baby. And the mother and child like relationship between Manaphy and May is touching at times. It was touching how they were developing this deep bond even though they would eventually have to be separated which leads to the best emotional moments of the film. The last scene with with them in particular I could help but actually say "Awww!"
The only complaints I could think of slightly comes from Il Neige's review for the movie. He basically thought that by focusing so much on her being the mother figure for Manaphy, the filmmakers kind of threw out her all-around personality from the show. Now as someone who never watched Advanced Generations I can't really confirm that. But thinking a little more about it, I did realize that she did become so devoted to the role that she doesn't really do anything else. In fact, apart from letting out her Squitle so that she could swim through a water tunnel, she never even called out her Pokemon to battle. So if you did watch Advanced Generations and think that this was out of character for May, I'm not going to say that I don't understand at least a tiny bit. But for me personally, I really enjoyed watching her bond with Manaphy.
The story in general is also stronger then in Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. It's basically a treasure hunt in a Indiana Jones sort of way. The climax was also pleasantly enjoyable. We even have a moment of Ash playing as the hero which you can say is a bit of a down given that it's also backs up to the fact that May doesn't do anything when she could have helped out Ash. But I guess the little kid me that still kind of roots for him likes the idea of only him doing this heroir deed. Similar to Latias and Latios is sharing ability I also enjoyed how there was a payoff to that defense power that Manaphy has...especially since it felt like a pointless gimmick early into the film.
If I had any major problems with the movie, they would be The Phantom and surprisingly Jack. The Phantom is another going it's all about greed and is slightly better than the Iron Mask Marauder because he has memorable personality and is sometimes used for laughs. But at the same time, the idea that one of the villains in his Pokemon movie is basically a pirate just sounds stupid to me. Jack in fairness was an interesting character when you put him on paper. It's his job to basically save the day and he doesn't even capture Pokemon so much as temporarily hypnotize them or something in order to travel or fight an enemy. In some respects his job sounds like a more fitting job for Ash because he probably will never become a Pokemon Master. But kind of like with Rayquaza -albeit at a much lesser extent, his purpose in the movie started to dwindle by the time we got to the climax. it feel like he was there just to be the Phantom's nemesis while it's still only May and Manaphy's story.
And that's my review for Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea. The villain was a little too silly for me and Jack's role as a title character was underwhelming, but the story and the relationship between May and Manaphy kept me invested to the point that this is probably my personal favorite of the Advanced Generations films. It's no Pokemon Heroes, but I'm still glad that I saw it for what it was.
Rating: 70%
No comments:
Post a Comment