Pokemon: Mewtwo Returns (2001) (NTSC)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Anime	Featurette-The Uncut Story Of Mewtwo's Origin Featurette-Johto League Champions Trailer-Pokemon: The First Movie; Pokemon 2000: The Movie; Pokemon 3
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	63:03
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,4	Directed By	Masamitsu Hidaka
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Veronica Taylor Ikue Ootani Rachael Lillis Eric Stuart Maddie Blaustein
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$24.95	Music	Ralph Schuckett Shinji Miyazaki

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Screen, not known whether Pan & Scan or Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Spanish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, Pokemon (tm) Nintendo
		Action In or After Credits	No

    MewTwo was a primary protagonist of the first Pokemon movie. This movie is a sequel. This sequel was clearly so popular that it went direct to video in this country (it may have had theatrical release in Japan and the USA - but it appears not).

    You didn't see the first Pokemon movie? No, neither did I. That's OK. This movie starts with a summary of what happened, so you can still appreciate the deep intellectual nature of the plot. The introduction is clearly distinguished from this movie, because the intro is presented in roughly 1.85:1 (not 16x9 enhanced) - the movie proper is presented full-screen.

    MewTwo was the big baddie in the first Pokemon movie. Here, he is a heroic character. The story begins with Ash and his crowd stumbling across the hiding place of MewTwo and his cloned Pokemon as they pursue the Team Rocket idiots (Jesse and James) after they kidnap Pikachu.

    I was unaware that there were other members of Team Rocket (I said I hadn't seen the first movie...) - in particular, I was unaware of the Team Rocket Combat Unit - we get to meet them in this movie, plus Giovanni and a couple of new characters, including The Black Tulip.

    Interestingly, there is not a single Pokemon contest in this movie - that surprised me. And there isn't a Pikachu short before the movie, either.

    There are, as in each Pokemon movie, some morals in this movie. The morals are rammed down our throats with a typical lack of subtlety - the heavy-handed emphasis on a clean and pure natural environment gets a bit tiresome. MewTwo's deep voiced ponderings on moral problems are a bit heavy, too. There are also a couple of serious holes in the plot.

    This disc includes a full history of the origin of MewTwo - you might watch it by yourself before letting the children see it, because it contains some sad material that might upset some children.

Video

    Warning: this is an NTSC disc. You'll need a display that can display NTSC (not too uncommon, today), or a DVD player that will convert NTSC to PAL (quite uncommon).

    The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced, except for the intro segment, which is 1.85:1, not 16x9 enhanced.

    The foreground picture is clear, and quite sharp (unfortunately this leads to aliasing). Some of the backgrounds (and a couple of stills) appear to be watercolours, so they are naturally soft. A discussion of shadow detail is irrelevant to this kind of animation. There's no trace of low-level noise.

    Colour is bright, but there are traces of colour bleed. There's no oversaturation, though.

    There are no significant film artefacts. However, there is an awful lot of aliasing - the black lines around each character alias horribly. There's no moire, no pixelization, and no background shimmer.

    There are subtitles in three languages, including English. The English subtitles are accurate, easy to read, and well-timed - I didn't spot any errors.

    The disc is single-sided and single layered. With such a short movie and not a lot of extras, there's no problem fitting everything into a single layer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The English soundtrack is in Dolby Digital 2.0, surround encoded.

    The dialogue is clear and easily understood. Audio sync cannot be judged on this kind of animation.

    The score is attributed to Ralph Schuckett, but there's also a credit for Rave Music, and for Shinji Miyazaki. It's fairly standard Pokemon fare.

    The subwoofer is given nothing to do. The surrounds get nothing significant, either.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static with music.

Deleted Scene - the Uncut Story of MewTwo's Origin (10:22)

    Interesting stuff - the tale of MewTwo's origin narrated by MewTwo and a scientist.

Music Video - Johto League Champions (0:49)

    This is a short music video. Note that it is not a Pokemon rap.

Trailer - Pokemon - the first movie (1:21)

    A full-screen trailer for the first movie.

Trailer - Pokemon 2000 (1:17)

    A full-screen trailer for the second movie.

Trailer - Pokemon 3 (1:19)

    A full-screen trailer for the third movie.

    The R1 version of this disc sounds as if it is identical to this one (no surprise there) - the one big difference is that the R1 is in a snapper case (let's have a small cheer for Warner Home Video Australia for giving us transparent Amaray cases instead).

    One for big Pokemon fans who don't mind heavy morals.

    The video quality is good, except for the constant aliasing.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are OK.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall