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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (4K Blu-ray) (2019)

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (4K Blu-ray) (2019)

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Released 21-Aug-2019

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Fantasy None
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 2019
Running Time 104:28
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Rob Letterman
Studio
Distributor

Roadshow Home Entertainment
Starring Justice Smith
Ryan Reynolds
Kathryn Newton
Bill Nighy
Ken Watanabe
Chris Geere
Suki Waterhouse
Josette Simon
Rita Ora
Karan Soni
Case Standard Blu-ray
RPI $34.95 Music Henry Jackman


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Atmos
English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Digital 5.1
Bulgarian Dolby Digital 5.1
French Dolby Digital 5.1
Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1
Czech Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 2160p
Original Aspect Ratio 2.40:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired
French
Portuguese
Spanish
Bulgarian
Cantonese
Croatian
Czech
Hungarian
Korean
Mandarin
Romanian
Russian
Slovak
Thai
Turkish
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Originating from Japan, the Pokémon franchise encompasses video games, anime, trading cards and all manner of merchandise, attaining unfathomable worldwide popularity. The property has spawned an anime television series and several animated feature films (some produced on the cheap), but 2019's Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is the first attempt to realise the colourful, extravagant Pokémon world in live-action, complete with a generous budget and familiar actors, seeking to initiate a new mainstream blockbuster film series. Directed by Rob Letterman (late of 2015's better-than-expected Goosebumps), Detective Pikachu is essentially a mix of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Zootopia, with a neon-soaked visual style reminiscent of Blade Runner to boot. As far as both family films and video game adaptations go, Detective Pikachu is happily above-average; this is a fun, skilfully assembled fantasy adventure with the potential to appeal to both established fans and newcomers.

    Tim (Justice Smith) gave up Pokémon training after the loss of his mother, instead taking a straight job as an insurance salesman and leaving his past behind him. When Tim finds out that his police detective father, Harry, has died in a car accident, he packs up and travels to Ryme City, a sprawling metropolis masterminded by visionary billionaire Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy) where humans and Pokémon peacefully coexist as equals. Inside Harry's Ryme City apartment, Tim meets Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds); a small, yellow, amnesiac Pokémon detective who worked as Harry's partner prior to the car accident. Tim is somehow able to understand Pikachu's speech, and Pikachu is suspicious about the circumstances which led to Harry's ostensible death, prompting the pair to team up and investigate by themselves. Joining them is curious reporter Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton) and her Pokémon, Psyduck, as they discover a type of gas specifically engineered to turn Pokémon into vicious killers.

    First introduced in the 1990s, the popular Pokémon Gameboy games were largely plotless, revolving around a player's mission to capture as many of the creatures as possible, progressing from skirmish to skirmish. In addition, Pokémon are not capable of speech beyond saying their own name, making them risky protagonists. Detective Pikachu solves these issues by taking its cues from a spinoff video game of the same name, which has a more defined story and features a version of Pikachu who is able to speak full sentences, while the Pokémon world is more of a backdrop rife with opportunities to depict the creatures in various situations. Indeed, Ryme City is full of Pokémon of all shapes and sizes, giving newcomers the chance to grow familiar with individual powers and temperaments. In other words, Detective Pikachu manages to pull together an engaging story no matter your level of familiarity with the source material, representing an ideal entry point into the franchise for those who never played the games or watched the anime.

    From the cinematography to the production design, the filmmakers show astonishing reverence for the Pokémon games, demonstrating that genuine love and care went into the production process. Furthermore, it helps that Detective Pikachu is treated like a legitimate film as opposed to a cheap novelty, lensed by ace cinematographer John Mathieson (Logan), and supplemented with a flavoursome score by Henry Jackman (Captain America: Civil War). In addition, the Pokémon creatures are visualised with superb digital effects, giving these characters fresh life outside of the anime and games, while the choice to shoot on 35mm film gives the CGI a welcomely tangible aesthetic. Pikachu looks especially great; he's insanely expressive and feels real, to the extent that you might forget he is a digital character. It helps that the Pokémon predominantly appear in practical sets and real locations as opposed to fully digital environments, giving the animators a firm frame of reference in terms of lighting. However, the CGI is a bit more obvious during the climax when the scale increases, along with the reliance on digital effects.

    In spite of its ample strengths, Detective Pikachu does fall victim to some common pitfalls of contemporary blockbusters - primarily, the second act involving a perfunctory McGuffin hunt is not as energetic as the first half-hour, there's a big climax that feels more motivated by formula than story, and the film contains some obvious world-building which hinders narrative focus. However, most of this is par for the course for this type of production, and what matters is that Detective Pikachu gets more right than wrong, with its immense charm compensating for any scripting shortcomings. Reynolds is a big selling point, and he is expectedly ideal for this iteration of Pikachu, able to confidently deliver the wisecracks as well as the more serious material (all the while suppressing his foul-mouthed Deadpool instincts). Newton also makes a positive impression, turning the token love interest role into someone resourceful and charming. This is not exactly an actor's movie, but recruiting reliable veterans like Bill Nighy and Ken Watanabe in supporting roles gives the material some gravitas.

    For long-time Pokémon fans, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is a huge wet kiss of a fan service movie, beset with Easter Eggs, references, and beloved Pokémon characters in cameos throughout. However, this is also a sufficiently satisfying standalone action-adventure in its own right, with brisk pacing and an appealing cast, though some flaws hold it back from perfection. Detective Pikachu has heart to boot, which prevents it from becoming a soulless digital demo reel, but do not expect revelatory storytelling or much in the way of poignancy - in short, it's good, but not Pixar good.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    A success at the worldwide box office, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu thankfully earns a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release courtesy of Roadshow Entertainment. As with virtually all of Roadshow's 4K Blu-rays, the disc was authored and encoded by Warner Bros. overseas, and Roadshow simply sourced the discs for their release (the disc is identical in terms of disc artwork and specs to the American 4K disc). Presented in 2160p, the movie is framed at its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1, encoded with the HEVC/H.265 video codec. According to technical information online, Detective Pikachu was shot on 35mm film and completed with a 2K digital intermediate, presumably making this an upscale of said DI. This is only a dual-layered BD-66 (as opposed to a triple-layer 100GB disc), though the disc size appears sufficient given the 104-minute runtime - the video bitrate frequently hovers around the 40-50 Mbps mark. Unusually for a Roadshow/Warner Bros. title, even though Detective Pikachu was mastered in Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range, and is available to stream in Dolby Vision, the disc only offers the movie in vanilla HDR10, which may irk videophiles but was not a problem for me.

    To put it lightly, this 4K presentation quite handily beats its 1080p counterpart in all areas, with richer colours, superior highlights, better-resolved fine detail, and healthier grain. I noted that the standard Blu-ray lacks tightness for the most part, and this is rectified in 2160p, with more consistent sharpness and a subtle bump in terms of texturing. The added resolution brings out omnipresent but subtle film grain, which may annoy "grain haters" but ensures the movie always exhibits sublime fine detail, and it's more faithful to the intended look. There's more consistency to the transfer quality as well, as the encode brings out as much detail as the source permits - even medium and wide shots reveal gorgeous texturing on sets and characters. In close-ups, both the digital and the human characters look exceptional. Just see the close-ups and even the medium shots of Nighy during a scene in Howard's office at the 50-minute mark. Additionally, this is a sharper transfer than its 1080p counterpart, with eye-popping object delineation allowing you to discern every hair and blade of grass. It's worth pointing out that the snippets of news footage throughout are intentionally flawed, with deliberate processing, and this is therefore not a fault of the video encode.

    Beyond the bump in resolution and texturing, as ever it's the application of HDR that really enhances this 4K presentation. As previously noted, the disc is only encoded in HDR10, with the Dolby Vision version reserved for streaming, but I can't imagine that DV could significantly improve this sublime transfer. I pointed out in my review of the standard Blu-ray that the skies during the morning montage at the 3-minute mark are hopelessly blown out, but the HDR application here restores specular detail in the skies and background landscapes. Also see any scene involving fire, such as the hologrammatic recreation of the car crash in Howard's office, or when Charizard enters the arena with Pikachu - the improvements in terms of highlights on the flames cannot be overstated. In addition, the neon lighting leaps off the screen, and the cityscape lights in Ryme City at night are better emphasised, while shadow detail on skin is another enormous improvement. When Tim first meets Lucy at 14:30, the harsh lighting obliterates detail and highlights on the 1080p Blu-ray, but there are no such issues on this disc - the transfer remains tight and pleasingly textured. A close-up of Tim in Harry's office at 16:25 brings out superb highlights on the side of his face, while a subsequent close-up of his fingers reveals sublime skin texturing. Additionally, skin tones are more balanced, and colours as a whole are improved, looking richer, deeper and more lifelike. Contrast is improved as well, giving some fantastic depth to the transfer.

    On the downside, there is still some mild softness from time to time (particularly during the bigger digital effects sequences), and it doesn't have the same definitive "pop" that a native 4K finish would have afforded (this could also be due to filtering during the creation of the 4K master, or due to the bitrate which could have been higher). The white specks that were detected on the regular Blu-ray remain here, but again they are very occasional and not an issue. Other than that, Detective Pikachu looks excellent on 4K Blu-ray, again showing the benefits of this new format and rendering the 1080p Blu-ray utterly obsolete. It also does more justice to veteran John Mathieson's intricate cinematography. Additionally, the encode is absolutely immaculate, never falling victim to any banding, aliasing, crush, or macroblocking. Detective Pikachu is not a reference disc, but it's definitely the preferred way to experience this first live-action Pokémon movie on home video.

    A whole heap of subtitle options are available in various languages. Like on the Blu-ray, the English subtitle track is free of issues and easy to read.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Lords be praised - Roadshow/Warner Bros. have finally ditched their bizarre practise of discs defaulting to a downgraded 5.1 English audio track. When loaded up, Detective Pikachu thankfully defaults to the primary Dolby Atmos mix, though there is also an additional, superfluous English Dolby Digital 5.1 track that I have no intention of ever sampling. A whole heap of additional Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included in other languages, more than I can include in the specs for the disc (to be more specific, there are audio options for Bulgarian, French, Cantonese, Czech, Portuguese, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Spanish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Thai, and Turkish). For the most part, this Atmos mix sounds fine, as it ably handles the dialogue, music and sound effects, while there is surround activity to boot. However, it sometimes sounds more like a neutered Disney audio mix, as some of the dialogue sounds slightly muffled and it's not as dynamic as the best Atmos mixes on the market. Still, there is much to appreciate about this track. There is effective subwoofer activity to augment the louder sound effects, such as the car accident, Charizard's roar, or the sound of Pokéballs which exhibit LFE. The dialogue is frequently front-centred, and is always well-prioritised no matter the environment - I had no troubles comprehending the chatter (the slight muffling to some lines feels are likely a source-related issue).

    The first act primarily takes place in sedate locations, with not much in the way of environmental ambience to engage the surround channels. However, the audio is given the chance to shine in bigger scenes, such as inside the nightclub at the 39-minute mark, when noticeable separation and panning is evident, while crowd noises and music inhabit the rear speakers. The climax on the streets is also a good demonstration of the track's abilities, with noticeable (but not overpowering) crowd noises, while scenes at the top of Howard's tower are accompanied by the sound of wind after windows are broken. More dynamic range is evident here, particularly when Mewtwo flies around, while subwoofer activity is effective. Furthermore, Henry Jackman's score comes through with pristine clarity throughout, and there are no problems with syncing, drop-outs, popping or hissing. This is a proficiently-mixed Atmos track, and it sounds great on 4K Blu-ray in spite of a few shortcomings.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    No special features are available on the 4K disc. Everything is on the accompanying 1080p Blu-ray.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    All 4K discs appear to be virtually identical worldwide, aside from differing language options, and special features on the 1080p Blu-ray are the same in all countries. Buy local.

Summary

    I had a passing interest in Pokémon as a youngster, though I haven't played any of the later video games, I haven't watched the anime in about 15 years, and I didn't fall victim to the widespread Pokémon Go craze in 2016. This is to say that I'm not a huge fan of the franchise and don't have extensive knowledge of it, but Pokémon: Detective Pikachu worked like gangbusters for me - it's a well-made, frequently entertaining fantasy adventure with a winning cast.

    Unsurprisingly, this 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray is the best way to experience this slick action-adventure. The 2160p transfer is a significant improvement in every respect, while the Dolby Atmos mix is crisp and satisfying. Throw in a standard Blu-ray disc with a fine collection of extras, and this one comes recommended.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Callum Knox (I studied biology)
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Review Equipment
DVDSony UBP-X700 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player, using HDMI output
DisplayLG OLED65E6T. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 2160p.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
AmplificationSamsung Series 7 HT-J7750W
SpeakersSamsung Tall Boy speakers, 7.1 set-up

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