Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)

I grew up watching Pokémon and I’m one of those people who has been playing PokémonGO for the past three years, so when news came out of Pokémon Detective Pikachu, saying that I was excited about the film is an understatement.

Set in a world filled with hundreds of unique creatures — Pokémon —, the story follows Tim Goodman (Justice Smith), a 21-year-old blue collar insurance worker, as he teams up with a talking Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) to investigate the death/disappearance of his father, Kanto police detective Harry Goodman.

The biggest problem with Pokémon Detective Pikachu is the plot. It is extremely simple and predictable, so much so that anyone over the age of eleven will be able to figure it out almost immediately, but it’s actually at its worst when it tries to be more complex as it feels out of place and had me waiting, kinda bored, for the next cool Pokémon thing to happen. Despite this, it still manages to deliver a surprising twist at the end and, although it’s quite silly, the story is throughout engaging and interesting to follow.

The characters are just as thin as the story. Actually, they are even worse as they are non-existent — they barely have personalities and don’t have anything resembling development. Also, the villain is tremendously bland, generic.

Thankfully, Justice Smith gives a performance that is likeable enough to make you care about Tim. Also, he delivers both laughs and some genuine emotions. It’s Ryan Reynolds, however, who completely steals the show as he yet again delivers great comedy in the role of the adorable, fluffy Pikachu. Bill Nighy is also very enjoyable. The rest of the cast, I don’t even want to talk about them. That’s how bad they are.

Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s not only Reynolds’s Pikachu who steals the scene though, as every single Pokémon making an appearance in the film stands out, from Cubone to Ditto to Mr. Mime who delivers the film’s most hilarious moments — everyone in the audience was laughing during his scenes, kids and adults alike.

Ultimately, Pokémon Detective Pikachu is not a great film — it’s not like I was expecting it to be though — but it’s overall an enjoyable and funny film, especially if you are a Pokémon fan.

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Assassination Nation (2018)

I know we are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but it's because of the poster that Assassination Nation caught my attention. Eventually, it lost it because I thought, and I have to thank Google for it, Bella Thorne was the lead. I've read several positive reviews about it ever since so I decided to give it a chance. 

The film mainly follows Lily (Odessa Young) and her friends, Sarah (Suki Waterhouse), Bex (Hari Nef), and Em (Abra), a group of high school seniors in a city called Salem. Each of them has her own daily struggles, but things get really bad when an anonymous cracker starts posting personal messages, photos and emails from everyone in their small town, and the four girls become the target of their community. 

Saying that the plot to Assassination Nation is a mess is a bit of an understatement. It is chaotic at its best, it's often unfocused —there are several plot points that seem to have a huge impact on the story but eventually, they go nowhere— and it is occasionally boring. It would also be one of the most absurd plots of the year if it wasn't terribly plausible in today's society, specifically in the States. 

It's also quite an important story as it deals with themes such as misogyny, feminism, sexual assault, bullying, racism, gun culture, morality in the digital age, lack of privacy online, and more. This is both the film's greatest strength and its biggest weakness. A strength because these are themes that need to be addressed; a weakness because there are so many issues to handle, some are barely exploited, and overall it feels like they could have done more with each. 

The characters are all unlikeable, underdeveloped and it would be impossible to care for any of them if it wasn't for the girls who are some of the most relatable characters of the year for people of a similar age.

The performances are pretty solid, especially from the four girls who share incredible chemistry. Odessa Young easily stands out though. Her performance as Lily is terrific as she brings to the character both vulnerability, fragility and innocence, and violence, and manages to make fun of her character and her generation in the process.

Neon, AGBO, Refinery29

The cinematography is a bit of a hit-and-miss: it is very vibrant and beautiful in some scenes; it's bland and lacks creativity in others. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is quite brilliant and manages to make the dull moments kind of grippy.

Overall, Assassination Nation didn't really convince me. It just borrows too many elements from other films —Heathers, Mean Girls, The Purge, to name a few— and it addresses too many issues for his short running time.

The Bad Batch (2016)

I loved Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night so I could tell you I watched The Bad Batch because of it. I could also tell you that I had high expectations about it. But the truth is I watched it because of Jason Momoa, which is why I didn't have a lot of expectations from it (also, I read m.brown's review months ago and it didn't sound that good).

The film is set in a near future and follows a young woman named Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) after she is dumped into the Texas desert with other rejects of the American society known as the bad batch. Eventually, she is captured by a tribe of cannibals, led by Miami Man (Jason Momoa), who severe her right arm and leg. She manages to escape and makes her way to another tribe, led by a man known as The Dream (Keanu Reeves).

There is no need to delve more into the plot as nothing really happens in the film. Just a lot of tedious nonsense and characters doing the most idiotic and crazy shit, which is a bummer since the beginning was quite interesting and gripping.

In addition to a non-existent plot that moves at a snail-like pace, The Bad Batch also has plenty of uninteresting and weird characters --I mean, cannibal bodybuilders? I think I've seen it all now. They are pretty thin and underdeveloped, they barely speak and you won't probably give a damn about any of them.

Considering that, it doesn't come as a surprise that the cast does a terrible job. Suki Waterhouse (I had to google her because I had no idea who she was. Apparently she is a British model. Which explains a lot) is a terrible lead. She doesn't have the charm needed to make you like the character, and she has the same blank expression from start to finish. Not to mention the awful, Texan I suppose, accent she is doing here. Unfortunately, hers isn't even the worst accent. That would be Momoa's accent. The guy is really struggling to do a Cuban accent and the result is that a, it sounds weird, and b, it's almost impossible to understand what he's saying. Jim Carrey, who plays a sunburnt, mute Hermit, looks like he can't believe he is in the movie. Keanu Reeves, on the other hand, seems to be having a lot of fun as the Dream.

Neon

Thankfully, The Bad Batch has some redeeming qualities. The film has a really great dystopian atmosphere which is enhanced by the great soundtrack Amirpour picked, and the cinematography is terrific (and Jason Momoa is shirtless). These few aspects alone aren't enough to make the film bearable though.