Movie Review: Pokemon M18 - Hoopa and the Clash of Ages

Pokemon Movie 18: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages

I haven't watched a Pokemon movie since... forever! I talk about Pokemon a lot, and last week I finally watched the eighteenth (fucking shit!) movie. Maybe I'll talk about the older movies a little here and there if this one gets a lot of views. Now Pokemon movies (and anime movies in general, really) are honestly not much better from a normal episode of Pokemon in terms of plot and storytelling. It's a bit more grandiose, of course, with a bigger budget, it stars either one of the legendaries of the generation or introduces a new one for the upcoming generation. But as a Pokemon fan, y'know, it's fun to watch them!

And for some of these Event-exclusive Pokemon, the movies are probably going to be where they star in the most until the manga adapts them, because the Event-exclusives aren't involved in the games in any form of sidequest or whatever the way other legendaries are. I really didn't give two shits about Diancie, Hoopa or Volcanion when the hackers found them out. I mean, yeah, I guess it's cool that a couple of unique typings (Hoopa's Ghost/Psychic and Volcanicon is Fire/Water) exist, but up until Diancie got her own movie, damned if I can tell her and Hoopa apart. They're both just the 'new Gen VI legendaries that are little pink floating legless humanoids'. Diancie was the star of the movie before this which I watched in bits and pieces, and she's basically the princess of Carbinks. Which doesn't mean much, really, since Carbink is kind of forgettable, but it's a cool movie with Yveltal and Xerneas, both of whom I absolutely love from the sixth generation. I'll probably watch that movie and the Genesect one soon after this, because I haven't watched either of them in its entirety.

Now this movie stars Hoopa, who is this little prankster based on a genie. There's a cold open where Hoopa's true, ugly ogre-like form pops out of a ring on a random totally-not-Arab village and starts causing some chaos, summoning Groudon, Kyogre, Reshiram, Zekrom and Regigigas and doing battle against them. Then some random bloke seals Hoopa in a little bottle.

Fast-forward to the present day, Ash and company end up encountering Hoopa, now reduced to a tiny little sprite genie thing that you see in the poster, a lot cuter and plushier. Hoopa's basically a little prankster, but his buddies, descendants of the bloke that initially sealed Hoopa, recovers the bottle in a good-natured attempt to restore Hoopa's power... yet instead Hoopa's power sealed in the bottle apparently has become angry and... well, basically it's little Hoopa fighting against the giant angry shadowy Hoopa, and the two just duke it out by summoning legendary Pokemon, which is the whole premise of the movie. A good chunk is just Ash and little!Hoopa running away from Shadow Hoopa's rings and arms-popping-out-of-rings, though, before Lugia gets summoned and fights Shadow Hoopa for a bit, gets teleported to a random ocean, and both Hoopa and Shadow Hoopa then proceeds to summon a ton of legendaries -- a black Rayquaza, Latias and Latios on Ash's side and Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Kyurem, Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre on Shadow Hoopa's side. Shadow Hoopa, conveniently, has mind-control abilities, which makes the movie basically just Ash riding on the Latis and Rayquaza as they exchange beams with the mind-controlled legendaries. 

While the rest of the cast just literally spends the entire movie doing some ritual to recreate Hoopa's sealing jar. I don't think Serena even got more than two lines the entire movie. There's something nice and poetic about Hoopa finally coming to terms with his darker side and embracing it and making peace with it, but it doesn't really make for a truly satisfying plot. The legendaries duking it out is impressively animated and great action scenes, and honestly the Pokemon fanboy in me just geeked out when they start throwing down against each other -- but it all eventually kinda felt one-note as the three aligned with Ash tends to just outrace the Shadow-aligned legendaries. Mega Rayquaza is awesome enough to break off from the party and take on Giratina and later Black Kyurem one-on-one, which is easily the best action scenes of the movie, but other than that...

And after Hoopa finally wins over his darker side because of FRIENDSHIP (which is 100% expected in anime movies, especially one aimed at a younger audience like Pokemon) we get another ten minutes of random useless filler as GIANT SPACE TIME DISTORTION shows up out of nowhere and apparently Palkia, the god of space, can do jack shit against it. It's wholly unnecessary and while it would've been a way for Hoopa to overcome his initial limitations by finally accepting others and being able to go through his rings, Arceus literally deus ex machinas out of literal nowhere. We could've had a dramatic moment where the legendaries involved pool their forces to help free Hoopa, with a friendship 'all is forgiven' moment, or Hoopa himself and his buddies using FRIENDSHIP power... not deus ex Arceus.

It's a rather generic story, though Hoopa's backstory and his unique ring-dimensional-gate powers is unique enough to make it feel different from the other Pokemon movies, and the big legendary throwdown is very entertaining to watch, but strip that away and this movie honestly felt like it really could've been thrown through several script revisions to make it less of a big action scene with an excuse plot to a properly plotted movie that happens to have a great legendary Pokemon showdown in the middle.

Oh well, it at least makes Hoopa into an entity in my head. He didn't annoy me, which is an important distinction when you're a chipper anime character trying to be cute.