Pokemon: The Movie 2000 (1999/2000) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I haven't started watching Power Rangers Turbo yet, but I'm gonna get to that this weekend I think. I have other things to do like play my Nintendo Switch, and get some comic books read so I can review them, so we shall see. Today though I'm here to do a movie review that I've been wanting to do since September, but haven't gotten to it. Today I'm gonna be talking about Pokemon: The Movie 2000, which came out in Japan in 1999 and came out here in North America in 2000. I'm only talking about the English dub as that's what I have on VHS. There will be potential spoilers for this movie, so if you haven't seen it before, just be aware of that. Without further ado, let's get into it.

Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is another movie I completely missed when it came out. I remember seeing commercials for it on TV, but I never saw it. Not on TV, not on home video, and not in theatres. I don't think my siblings saw it either, unlike Pokemon: The First Movie. By the time this movie came out, I had pretty much stopped watching the Anime regularly and while new Game Boy games had been announced, I wasn't sure if my siblings and I would be getting them. I also wasn't as big of a Pokemon fan as my siblings were either. Not at that time anyway.

I honestly think this movie is better than Pokemon: The First Movie is, and as you know from my review, I really like that movie. The stakes feel much much higher in this movie than they ever really did in the TV show and in the first movie. In the TV show it's much more about Ash's journey as a Pokemon trainer, as well as stopping Team Rocket's small scale plans to steal Pokemon. And the first movie was stopping the very disturbing plans of Mewtwo, which didn't really seem to affect the human characters. Here though the disruption of the balance between the Legendary Pokemon, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, by Lawrence III (I'll get to him later) not only had impact on Ash, his friends, Team Rocket, and the Pokemon, but on the entire world, which is very unusual to see in the Pokemon franchise as a whole. Before I go more in depth on the movie, I want to talk about where Pokemon was as a franchise when the movie came out in North America.

When the movie came out in Japan on July 17th, 1999, Nintendo and GameFreak were preparing to release the Generation II games, Pokemon Gold and Silver Versions, which were due to be released on November 21st, 1999, as well as gearing up to begin airing the third season, The Johto Journeys, which was due to begin airing on October 14th, 1999 in Japan. In North America however, things were a bit different.

In 1998, Pokemon exploded into popularity with the Anime's first season/series, Pokemon: Indigo League, as well as the Generation I games, Pokemon Red and Blue Versions for the Nintendo Game Boy, and Pokemon: The Trading Card Game. Indigo League ended in North America on November 27th, 1999, and was about to make a transition.

Three major events happened for Pokemon in 1999, besides the end of the first season. The first is that Pokemon Yellow Version, which took Red and Blue and incorporated more elements from the Anime, with Pikachu being your starter Pokemon which follows you around, the characters's clothing in the artwork for the game resembling what they wear in the Anime, and Jessie and James being the members of Team Rocket that you interact with throughout the game, on October 18th, 1999. The second is that Pokemon: The First Movie was released in theatres on November 12th, 1999, and introduced the audience to Snubbell and Marill, two Pokemon that would appear in the Generation II games. And the final thing is that season 2 of the Anime, Adventures in the Orange Islands began airing on Kids' WB in the United States and on YTV here in Canada, on December 4th, 1999. Aside from the location the only real difference between season 1 and season 2 is that Brock stayed behind on Valencia Island to study Pokemon with Professor Ivy in the third episode of season 2, and is replaced in the trio with Tracey, who only appeared in the second season of the Anime and the second movie.

When Pokemon: The Movie 2000 came out in North America on July 21st, 2000, Gold and Silver had already come out and The Johto Journeys was about to finish airing in Japan.

But here in North America, Gold and Silver weren't due to come out until October 15th, 2000, and The Johto Journeys wasn't due to start airing until the day before the games were due to release. But this movie and the short it was released with, Pikachu's Rescue Adventure, debuted a bunch of Gen II Pokemon, that Japanese audiences were already familiar with as the movie had already come out in Japan, The Johto Journeys was almost over, and Gold and Silver were already released. The Gen II debuts in this movie, and it's short, are Ledyba, Elekid, Bellossom, Hoothoot, and Lugia. And of course, Marill, which I think appeared in Adventures in the Orange Islands after it debuted in Pikachu's Vacation in 1998 in Japan and 1999 in North America, alongside Snubbell. 

While Tracey doesn't have a whole lot to do in this movie, Misty has this English dub subplot of Melody, the girl they meet on Shamouti Island, teasing Misty about her relationship with Ash, due to the fact that in North America there had been some speculation that Ash and Misty were actually in love with each other. It's not intrusive, but being that the English dialogue isn't just a translation of the Japanese dialogue, moments that were focused on Ash and Misty's relationship probably focused on other things in the original Japanese version. 

Team Rocket has a very interesting role in this movie. Jessie, James, and Meowth are heroes in this movie. Aside from the very beginning of the movie, they help Ash the entire time against Lawrence III, and in trying to stop the Legendary Pokemon from destroying the world after Lawrence III disrupted the balance between the three Legendarys. Which is a huge switch for them. But I love how they're afraid of what Giovanni will do to them for actually doing good instead of being the bad guys. It's funny because when they showed up to help Ash and Pikachu get to the final shrine to get the orb of ice, I actually thought to myself, "Wow, Giovanni is gonna be pissed when he finds out that instead of taking advantage of the situation and stealing Pikachu, and other Pokemon, Jessie, James, and Meowth helped Ash and his friends!". And sure enough, Meowth expresses the same sentiment at the end of the movie.

Speaking of Lawrence III, he's lame antagonist. Once Ash and the others escape his flying fortress, which looks like the base of operations for a group of villains from a season of Super Sentai and/or Power Rangers, you only see him two or three more times in the entire movie, and two of those times he tries to capture Lugia, which was his entire goal in the first place. It didn't work obviously, but still. And he was doing it because he wanted to complete his collection that started with an Ancient Mew card. So in a way, he wasn't actually a villain, just a misguided collector, who didn't do his research into what he wanted to collect. Which sounds like it's trying to teach the fans something about collecting, which I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it was trying to do. And because of certain things happening in the world today, Lawrence III's behaviour felt more timely to today than it does to 22 years ago. 

3D animation is used in a scene or two, and honestly it's much better blended into the 2D animation that is the dominant art style of the movie. With Pokemon: The First Movie you could tell when CG was being used because it stood out among the 2D animation much how it did in other animated movies in the late '90s like Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) and Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998). But here, you can tell what's 3D animation, but it's not as in your face about it like the last movie was.

While the soundtrack for Pokemon: The First Movie was filled with Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and other Pop icons of the late '90s and early 2000s, the soundtrack for Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is filled with more indie Pop artists from the early 2000s, as well as artists and bands from the '80s and early '90s. For example O-Town, a group I only know of through their song, "All or Nothing" from their 2001 debut album, O-Town, has two songs on this album, while Donna Summer had been a singer that was active from 1968 until her death in 2012, while the B-52's did "Love Shack" in 1989, began in 1976, and continued to perform until this year, as according to Wikipedia, they're currently on a final farewell tour that's ending on November 11th, 2022. Also, how did I not know that Weird Al Yankovic has a track on this soundtrack, which plays during the credits at the end of the movie, AND is a song about Pokemon, called "Polkamon"? Like really? I mean, I know this was my first time watching this movie, but it's Weird Al doing a Pokemon song, the year after he'd done "The Saga Begins", his second Star Wars parody song after 1985's "Yoda". Of course they didn't exactly play Weird Al's songs on the radio station I was listening to in 2000, so that's probably why I didn't know "Polkamon" exists. 

 

Pokemon: The Movie 2000 was released on VHS and DVD on November 14th, 2000. I have the VHS in my collection and it opens with a preview for the third Pokemon movie, Pokemon 3: The Movie - Spell of the Unown: Entei, which was due to be released in North American theatres on April 6th, 2001 and would be the final Pokemon to be released theatrically in North America until 2018 when Detective Pikachu came out. After the sneak preview, there's a commercial for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, which was due to come out on VHS and DVD on December 12th, 2000, Hey You Pikachu! which was due to come out for the Nintendo 64, the Pokemon Trading Card Game League, and DVD and VHS releases for Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory, and the home video release (VHS and DVD) for My Dog Skip (2000), which had come out theatrically earlier in the year.

Overall Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is a great movie. While Pokemon: The First Movie is more nostalgic because I saw bits and pieces of it on TV when I was a teenager and it covers the original run of the Anime, which I watched all the time with my siblings, Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is a better made movie. With alot more suspense to it than the first movie had. It also has greater character moments, where Ash is wondering if he's the right person to save the world. Which is different from his usual self, who is arrogant in the way he takes on challenges as a Pokemon trainer and that attitude often gets Ash and his friends into trouble. I definitely recommend watching this movie if you're a fan of Pokemon.

That's gonna be it for me for today my friends. I plan on playing my Nintendo Switch tonight for a little while because I have Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu! to play, so I might do a blog post on one of those games tomorrow. We'll see. In the meantime have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.