Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (1998/1999) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's Saturday and it's sunny, but cold, outside today. Which is good. So today I'm going to be talking about Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, the very first Pokemon movie, the movie's soundtrack AND the VHS release. So, let's get into it.

Pokemon The First Movie is a movie that I have a very weird relationship with. Mainly because, as I said in my series review yesterday, I stopped watching Pokemon near the end of Indigo League, but saw episodes of Adventures in the Orange Islands and saw bits and pieces of The Johto Journeys, so I wasn't as interested in this movie as my siblings were as they were the bigger Pokemon fans. I loved the first five games as well as the early side games such as Pokemon Pinball, Pokemon Snap, Pokemon Stadium, and Pokemon Stadium 2, but with the show being as repetitive as it was, I quickly lost my interest in that side of the franchise.

So when I sat down to watch the movie on VHS last night, I didn't remember any of it aside from Mewtwo's armor that he had during his backstory at the beginning of the movie. That's probably the only thing I saw one of the times my siblings watched it on TV, as I probably went to see what they were watching and then went back to whatever it was I was doing at the time. I can't believe I didn't watch this movie in the 2000s though. It's a great movie.

It's a little bit pointless, because you know the show is still airing new episodes so nothing permanent is going to happen to Ash or Pikachu, or Misty and Brock, or even Team Rocket, but it's still pretty cool to watch. The story is pretty thin, as many Pokemon stories are when it comes to the show, but at the same time, it's intriguing because you want to know what Mewtwo is going to do next and if Mew is going to save the day or not. I mean, Mew doesn't save the day, because Ash and Pikachu are our heroes, but Mew still shows up.

Misty and Brock are actually pretty useless in this movie. They spend most of it standing on the sidelines, watching their Pokemon fighting Pokemon clones. Which is pretty much their role in the gym battle episodes of the show, apart from the ones where they ARE the gym leaders Ash has to compete against, but this is a more action film up there with Batman Beyond and other animated shows that were on when this movie came out back in 1999 (1998 in Japan). 

Team Rocket is...well...they're Team Rocket. You can't help but laugh or roll your eyes at them, because they're so incompetent. They're also redeemed slightly, because even they recognize that what Mewtwo is doing is wrong, even though they're criminals. I do wish they'd had more of a reaction when they heard the lead scientist's message, discovering that their boss, Giovanni, was behind the creation of Mewtwo though, considering he didn't see fit to tell them about it. Mind you, Jessie, James, and Meowth aren't exactly high up in the Team Rocket organization given they keep failing to capture Pikachu, but still, I would've liked to see them be outraged that Giovanni hid this massive project from them.

The animation in this movie isn't all that different from the animation in the show. However, being that this is a movie that came out in 1998 in Japan and 1999 here in North America (and in other areas too), late '90s CG was used for many of the scenery shots of Mewtwo's palace, both the interiors and the exteriors. Especially once Ash, Misty, Brock, and the other Pokemon trainers arrive. It's not all that jarring since Digimon used CG for some of it's Digivolution sequences and Disney was using CG in their films as early as The Great Mouse Detective back in 1986. But unlike those late '80s and early '90s Disney movies, the CG animation isn't blended into the 2D animation quite as well.

The soundtrack to this movie is soooo 1999 it's not even funny. I've never owned it, but looking at the track listing on Wikipedia, I see so many late '90s/early 2000s pop bands and solo artists it's not even funny. I mean you have M2M (anyone remember them?), Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, NSYNC, B*Witched (anyone remember them?), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice in the Spice Girls), Vitamin C, 98 Degrees, Billie Piper, and Aaron Carter. If that doesn't scream late '90s and early 2000s I don't know what does.

My siblings and I never owned this movie on home video when it was out. I don't even remember renting it, so they watched it on TV alot. But the VHS was in the big VHS haul that I got back in November, and being Pokemon, I kept it in my collection. It's definitely a Kids WB VHS release. There was a preview for the Century 2000 Collection, which contained mostly VHS re-releases of movies that had been out on home video for two years or longer, like the Free Willy trilogy, The Amazing Panda Adventure (I have it on DVD, so I'll be reviewing that movie in the very near future), and Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, among others. But then there were previews for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, which was about to come out on VHS and DVD, and Kids WB, which was the kids block on The WB that Pokemon, Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond, and reruns of Animaniacs aired on, among other animated shows. Plus the soundtrack for this movie had a preview for it before the movie too.

The tape included the short movie, Pikachu's Vacation before the film too, and I laughed so hard with that short film. I mean it was just the Pokemon of Ash, Misty, Brock, and Team Rocket, including Meowth, on vacation at a Pokemon amusement park, getting into Looney Tunes style antics, and it was great. Especially since the main movie was so heavy. It was also the introduction of Snubbull and Marill, two Generation 2 Pokemon from Gold, Silver, and Crystal, into the anime as well, since the Generation 2 Pokemon wouldn't show up in the show until The Johto Journeys started airing in late 2000, nearly a year after Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back was released in North America. So that was cool.

Unlike with the TV show, I don't have nostalgia goggles on when it comes to this movie, since I didn't see it in it's entirety until last night. So I can say that it's a pretty great movie. Though I'm not sure I would've kept the VHS if I hadn't watched as much of the first season of the show as I did when I was in my early teens (I was almost 12 when the series started). It's very much a movie for Pokemon fans, and honestly, that's okay. It's trying to be more than the TV show was and it succeeds for what it is. It's not formulaic, despite the fact that Team Rocket tries to stick to their usual routine, and it's a fun, albeit cheesy, late '90s animated movie, which is what I needed last night.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today, and for this weekend. I'll be back next week with part 2 at my look at the Walt Disney Classics VHS line, as well as some other reviews or posts. So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.