Pokemon: The First Movie

Ah yes, lots of memories with this one. The first Pokemon movie was released at the peak of the craze the series commanded in the late 90s. I remember seeing this twice in the theaters and watching it countless times when it was on video. Just recently watched it for the first time in almost a decade and I found it to still be pretty good. I don't really have much to say here that hasn't already been said. This is the story of a human created advanced pokemon called Mewtwo and his quest for a purpose. Mewtwo then goes about attracting all the best pokemon and their trainers for a fight that the TV series main characters get involved with. Essentially, its the typical man creates beast, beast supercedes man, beast learns humanity stuff that movies churn out every couple of years. The movie is a tad darker than what was normally done in the regular anime series but it pulls it of fairly well and succeeds in conveying some form of emotions. On the flip side though, there are some god awful and just plain hypocritical morals that the film crams down our throats. Pokemon is the wrong franchise to try and drive home a "fighting is wrong" message or a racism stance for that matter. I've been told that none of that exists in the original Japanese version of the film which also features a better characterization of Mewtwo as opposed to dub version where he acts like a cold-hearted villain with a generic desire for world domination. I have no interest in going out of my way to see the Japanese version so I'll just take what I can get. The movie isn't as good as when I was a child, but its still a nice diversion.