Movie 2 "The Power of One" reviews

[Sakura Sakamoto]

thankyou for waiting but the wait is over finaly precenting for the first time anywhere a jinzo64 review of pokemon the movie 2000 the power of one.

the movie with a slowking looking out over the sea towards the islands of fire,ice and lightning. it pans to man who wants to catch moltres,zapdos and articuno so he can bring out lugia so he can catch lugia as well and add them to his collection. he starts by attacking moltrs with ice bombs. which gets motres's attention and the legendary pokemon goes on the attack attacking the nuts hi tech flying fortress and catches moltres with little difficulty.
we catch up with ash and friends misty and tracy as the cruise towartds there next destiation so they let pokemon out for some fresh air and a little swim they have hour.
ash tries to sink the boat by bring snprlax out.
looks like rain is on it's way on sorry it's a storm and team rocket are getting grounded by a school of magikarp.
storms over for now.
they get washed of course rand are now smack in the middle of the orange islands.
now the scene goes to mister mime ash's mom and professor oak who gets soaked by a quick downpour then he gets snowed on but ash's mom is fine as mr mime gets her an umberella.
Back with ash and friends who have landed on shimoni island just in time for the legend festabel where the villages and the village maiden mellady who thinks the tradition is silly. but she gives ash his traditional kiss which seems to annoy misty.
ash is the chosen one who convient now he must help kugia over the titans of fire ice and lightning mellady comes on stage at the legend festivel while playing the song of lugia.
ash the nutty chosen one he's going to be responsable for a change and go out to collect the three orbs from the three islands with mellady's sister and pikachu the hat stealing mouse.
the storm looks like rough so mellady,misty and tracy go out in the storm to look for ash.
back with ash the storms over but the seas getting rougher and now they've lost the rudder and ran aground.
theres some cool water effects when there out at sea. luckly mellady,mister and tracy land on the same island as ash where ash and pikachu find the fire orb. melady uses the sail to turn boat in to an plane melady tells ash that if he'd just stayed at the party like she said they wouldn't be stranded on fire.
then misty tells who she has to put up with ash's stubborn attitude everyday.
then melady tells they'll just have to work on it when they get married.
misty tells melady to take that comment back.
then jessie whos lieing in a heep on the florr after being hit by flying boat says getting involved withthe oppoiste sex is just asking for trouble. the njames comes in with yes it does and thats trouble i keep out off then moewth opens his mouth and throws you's 2 don't need the opposite sex as you got each other. it's funnier in the movie.
just after the that moltres appears in flash lightning firing of sparks everywhere.
pikachu and zapdos start talking by zapping each other with lightning.
the collector appears while using a machine to drain zapdos's elctrical enegery so it won't be able to fight back and is easily caught just as team rocket ash, friends and the boat. now all this guy needs to do is catch articuno and lugia will appear to be captured.
the guy had ash and friends in a cage and let them go idiot. professer oak, professer ivy
and ah's mom are the way to the orange islands with thousands of water and flying pokemon.
slowking needs pants it's getting cold.
ash and friends are trying to set moltres and zapdos free while the collector tries to catch articunio and hes drown lugia.
eventualy they break moltres out who attacks zapdos probably because zapdos invaded his island time to take it back.
the collectors ship has crash landed on lightning islands which has been frozen over by articuno.
ash and friends make a run for it forom the ship and the lightning orb lands right in front of him so he picks it up and they all run back to meladys ship which gwts washed of lightning island and almost crash lands but lugia saves thems and throws them on the island where the legend shrine is and the taking slowking.
articuno is trying to freeze everything while moltres and zapdos are trying to melt it.
lugia has shown up to try and stop the fighting and gets number 3 on 1.
lugia us's a force field to protect ash and friends but is eventually taken down when he is hit by a thunder bolt,flame thrower and ice beam.
lugias song is the same as the song from the legend melady plays it and lugias power is restored and tells ash he must go to ice island to get the third treasure. ash tries walking and makes a sled to sit on while charizard,squirtle and bulbasaur pull they get attacked by the 3 legendary birds. charizard, pikachu and lugia deflect the attacks but eventually the sled is destroyed and they seem to be out of look until team rocket show up in rubber dingy with a helicopter propeler attached to it.
the helicopter oak,ivy and ash's mom were in crashed on the island with shrine on it but there o.k.
once again the legendary birds attack ash and team rocket.
they make it to ice island where they find the final orb and ash get's it but just as there leaving there stoped by articuno and moltres but they manage to find a way of the island and hitch a ride on lugia who then attacked by the legendary pokemon but team rocket are slowing lugia so they let go and land in water. lugia is attacked by the collecter lugia shoots back with hyper and gets a good shot and the collectors ship and fires a secoond beam the almost hits 2 of the legendary birds and falls in to the icy water where ash is knocked out cold but misty goes and rescues because hes never alone because he has misty ash wakes up and places the treasure in the shrine.
the shrine glows green and green water starts pouring out and the pillars around the shrine turn green alternatly all the legnedary birds start waking up the water spills from the shrine in to the sea and up the islands where articuno, moltres and zapdos go back to there own island, lugia is once again healed by the music and takes ash the chosen one and pikachu for a ride.
so balance is restored and the seas and oceans return to normal the seas and oceans were a bit out of whack in the movie because the balance of power between the three legenary pokemon was out of a linement.
the beast of the sea was tamed and the world was saved by ash and friends.
his mom appears and tells him about how much she misses him and that he should try saving the world closer to home next.
the collecter started his collection with an acient mew card.

so there it is the world was saved by ash,misty,tracy melady her sister ashes pokemon, pikachu, lugia and team rocket.

well thats my review ill give it 8 out of 10.
cool movie with some corny jokes and nice cgi use.

 

[Maruno]

Not so much a review as a summary there

I'll get onto my version tomorrow, maybe.

 

[Maruno]

This time I shall be reviewing "Pokémon 2000: The Power of One" and its featurette "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure". But before that, I start with a joke I wrote myself.



Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres walk into a bar, and all go to get a drink.

Articuno is the first to be served, and asks for a vodka on the rocks. "A cold drink, I see," says the barman. "Suits you." And he pours it out and serves the next customer, Zapdos.

Zapdos orders an Electric Lemonade. "A tangy cocktail, I see," says the barman. "Suits you." And he mixes it and serves the last customer.

"Just a beer," says Moltres. The barman is surprised. "A beer?" he asks. "That's not very appropriate, is it? The only thing that can be said about beer is that it goes straight through you."

"That's true," replies Moltres. "But I have gonorrhoea; it burns when I pee."

---

2
Pikachu's Rescue Adventure

We start off with the heroes having a rest at a camp. All the small hero pokémon are released to have a sleep as well, as if they weren't just fine in their Poké Balls.

As usual, Togepi is the one to get into trouble, as it notices a flock of Ledyba (debut) and ends up rolling away and into a large hole. The other pokémon all immediately wake up and go after it. They peer down the hole, and Psyduck knocks them all in like a true ditz.

The intro song plays over shots of them falling down the hole for a long time, even though they end up in a huge tree. They exit the hole high up in the air, but a flock of Ledyba save them. They might as well not have bothered; there was probably a Snorlax trampoline below anyway.

The title of this featurette is displayed, and it's tremendously unfair. "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure", even though all the other cute hero pokémon are there too. But Pikachu's the mascot, so it can't be helped. Perhaps that's why Ash keeps getting rid of his pokémon (by releasing them or giving them to Oak to look after - they know they just can't compete with Pikachu, so they give up).

Elekid debuts itself, and looks a bit threatening (or as threatening as a stupidly malformed thing such as itself can look). Squirtle whips out its sharp sunglasses (cool glasses) to show that it means business, but Pikachu instead quickly makes friends with the Electric-type pokémon that has shown up just after the intro (unlike Raichu, you see).

There's a whole load of pokémon around here. I'm surprised there aren't any trainers eager to catch them. But no, you remember the rule - humans aren't allowed in the featurettes.

Elekid leads the hero pokémon though the forest, which, amongst other pokémon, is apparently home to a few Voltorb - do Voltorb live in trees? There's also a Hoothoot or two knocking around, which is a third debut - remember that this film is still set before Johto.

They arrive at a bunch of nests, each containing an Exeggcute. One of them is missing a seed (yes, Exeggcute are seeds, not eggs), and has replaced it with Togepi. They're rather attached to it, though, so the hero pokémon are going to have to find the missing one in order to get Togepi back.

Their search leads them to a cave full of greenery and Oddish-related pokémon, including Bellossom (another debut). There's also a bunch of Poliwhirl calling themselves Poliwrath - you can tell what they are by their lack of muscles. They all have a dance, which couldn't possibly be not rehearsed, but the hero pokémon seem unimpressed and leave immediately afterwards. They find a bunch of Clefairy, who Metronome an explosion (it's always an explosion with Metronome) that sends them flying.

They hit a Snorlax trampoline (told you there was one), encounter a Gyarados going up a waterfall (which Pikachu stupidly Thundershocks), and things eventually calm down. They're all back at the Exeggcute nests.

But only briefly, because a storm brews. It seems there's always a storm in Pokémon. The wind picks up, and starts blowing the nests away. The hero pokémon stop them, along with various wild pokémon.

The Snorlax (or a similar one, at least - what am I saying? All pokémon are identical) comes along to act as a wind breaker. The lightning threatens to smash up the huge tree they're in, so Pikachu decides to go to the top and Thunderbolt the lightning. Yeah, that's exactly what I'd think of doing, and it of course makes perfect sense.

Togepi's nest starts to go flying, and all the pokémon there grab it one after the other in a big chain. Snorlax, the anchor, is briefly distracted by flying apples, but gets it together and tugs them all back down. No one knows or cares about what happened to the other Exeggcute, it seems.

The storm disappears instantly, now that the writers can't think of any more dangers it can pose. We see the very beautiful Dragonair flying around a rainbow. It's almost a crime that it evolves into the big fat orange thing with tiny wings. It's also a bit puzzling why it isn't classified as a Flying type.

A Chansey shows up and delivers the missing Exeggcute seed. The recombined Exeggcute dances around a Leaf Stone, and evolves (but I won't tell you what into, so hah!). The Leaf Stone sticks around and doesn't disappear - why doesn't this happen in the games? I don't want to buy stone after stone after stone (or rather, find shard after shard after shard). Chansey quickly manages to find another egg from somewhere, though.

The hero pokémon wave goodbye, and go off. Venonat is as ever its very gormless self, even though I think it could be drawn to have expressions. They quickly return to their trainers, who apparently slept through the storm and didn't notice the pokémon had gone. I know they're all dozy gits, but come on...




Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One

Four islands and a Slowking. Somehow I just don't like that pokémon. I mean, the story goes that Shellder bit Slowpoke's tail and that allows it to be able to balance on its back legs, thereby becoming more able to do things. But Slowking's shell is on its head, which means that if it ever falls over it'll never be able to stand up again. Nah, I don't like it. But it speaks English here, which is helpful, and it's a debut. I suppose you need debuts.

Lawrence III (the bad guy) reads out the prophecy, which of course is:

• a) Entirely accurate,
• b) It describes the main character (in the Japanese, it only describes "an exceptional trainer"), and
• c) It rhymes, like all prophecies must do by law (apparently).

We see shots of Lawrence's Hikoukyu (his flying palace/fortress/airship thingy) and its interior. One such shot shows what appears to be an armillary sphere, although it doesn't look entirely plausible. Or maybe it's just something else.

Research reveals that the three Titans of legend are in fact the three birds. I could've told them that. Conveniently, the birds only live in the Orange Islands, where the heroes currently are. The Hikoukyu is apparently also there already.

Moltres is the first target. Ice blasts are shot at its island, which gets Moltres' attention and it attacks, only to be easily captured by magic rings and dragged inside the Hikoukyu. The capturing process is depicted as some kind of board game, holographic version. The CG is quite nice, especially with the rotating animated holograms of the three birds.

I also quite like Lawrence's voice. There's a line he says at around this point that I really like the sound of, but I've forgotten what it is and can't be bothered to check. The bad guys always have cool voices, but I suppose that's because the good guys can only be the heroes, and their voices are nothing special.

The title scene comes now, to some stupid electric guitar tune. I didn't like it, but it does mean that the opening sing is coming up. Perhaps that will be better.

The heroes are on a boat, driven by the green-haired Maren. She's going to do pretty much nothing in this film, so I won't bother mentioning her name. Eh? Ah, oops. Actually, the most interesting thing about her is that her Japanese voice actress also voiced Sailor Moon. I like to throw in these little bits of information every now and then, you know.

The Pokédex has a little voice-over, and claims that this film will be Ash's greatest adventure ever. Yeah, okay.

Now for the opening song. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact as in the first film, I think, but perhaps that's because I don't remember the original song of which this film's opening is a remake.

The heroes release all their pokémon, except for Charizard (too unruly) and Snorlax (too heavy). That's rather unfair, I think. Why should they be denied a bit of out-time just because they're bigger?

Team Rocket is on their trail in their trademark Magikarp submarine.

Hey, guess what? Another sudden storm. Seriously, why is anyone even surprised by them anymore? The pokémon quickly get recalled, and the boat gets washed to Shamouti Island (Team Rocket get smashed into it instead). Incidentally, the working name of the island was Farpoint Island which, if you're a Star Trek fan, you may find a bit amusing (as this film is essentially an "Encounter at Farpoint").

Back in Pallet Town, Delia (Ash's mother) is doing a bit of gardening on this lovely day, and Oak just happens to cycle by. Suddenly the weather turns to rain, and then to snow and aurora (because aurora are obviously weather and not caused by solar radiation at all, nope - I'm a physicist, I know about these things). A flock of birds fly off, followed by a herd of Diglett/Dugtrio (which are following on the surface, not underground for some reason). Mr. Mime is very flustered about something.

Back at Shamouti Island, everyone is wearing masks for a festival. Enter Melody, the girl who isn't interested in the festival for exactly one scene and is resistant to being the festival maiden. Ash reveals he's a pokémon trainer, and that's apparently a big thing.

Melody gives Ash a welcome kiss, and Misty reacts accordingly. Melody tells Misty not to be too jealous, and calls her by her name, even though she hadn't revealed it yet. I think it's pretty obvious that Misty is attracted to Ash, but is a tsundere (as many girls are in anime). It's a shame the kiddies can't appreciate all the nuances.

Festival time. The ship driver Maren is seen finishing a joke with the line: "And she says, 'No, but I have Krabbies!'" That's probably an adult joke, if you think about it. I hope you're beginning to see this in a whole new light now.

Misty is still brooding over the insane possibility of her being Ash's girlfriend. The girl doth protest too much, methinks. Ash is just eager to see what his role is in the festival as the chosen one.

Melody appears, all dressed up and pretty, and starts playing a shell. Conveniently, it's the catch song of the film (although you could easily see that it's not just a coincidence, as Lugia sings the same song and swims by the island all the time). Misty couldn't be more jealous of Melody, and it might even be cute if she had a different hairstyle. The tuft and the orange colour just don't do it for me. She's too much of a tomboy to ever be called "cute". "Sweet", maybe, but not "cute".

It turns out that Ash needs to get three glass balls from some islands (with very original names: Fire Island, Ice Island and Lightning Island). Ash is overeager to get it done, and wants to set of straight away, thus probably ruining the whole festival by performing what is likely the climax event way too quickly (it was supposed to be done tomorrow). Git.

He asks Misty if she wants to come with. Misty replies that if Ash wants someone who'll do whatever he wants whenever he wants, he should find himself a girlfriend. What kind of lesson is that to be teaching the kiddies?!

Pikachu runs off with Ash's hat, thus becoming the second pokémon to do so (remember Mankey? Neither does Ash, probably). Pikachu may have sensed something bad was going on, but it's not clear. But no matter, it somehow gets resolved 5 seconds later anyway. Ash and Maren head off on her boat, just as it starts raining again.

Melody swiftly decides to go after them, because she thinks she practically forced Ash to head out in the dangerous weather. Misty tags along, loudly proclaiming that it's not because she secretly likes him. Tracey's reason for coming along too aren't revealed, ahem. Oh, by the way, Tracey is in this film. He does nothing, I know, but I thought I should give him at least one mention.

Team Rocket sneak along on the second boat as well.

The television reports about the freaky weather, which is apparently caused by the underwater river (?). They're correct, of course - it's a really bad idea to be drawing the wrong conclusions, because that would confuse the kiddies. The report is there just to explain what's going on. Notice that what is referred to as a map of the world is shown on the television - it is remarkably neither round nor looks like a proper map.

Professor Oak and Delia are watching the report at Oak's lab. Professor Ivy calls to say that the pokémon are going nuts. Brock gets a brief cameo running about in the background. Notice the type symbols from the TCG displayed at the bottom of Oak's screen.

Back to Ash riding a boat through some big waves in a storm. No, we're not playing the drinking game this time (I'm not, at least). They crash on Fire Island, and Pikachu goes running up to its shrine.

The other heroes and Melody perform some infeasible stunts in the second boat (e.g. doing a vertical 360, and probably a barrel roll or two), and end up crashed right next to the first boat. But instead of getting out and walking, Melody raises the sails and they... fly. Yes, okay. They sail up the steps.

Pikachu and Ash arrive at the Fire Shrine, and take the Fire Sphere (the dub calls them "treasures", but I'm not having any of it). Somehow Pikachu knows that the Sphere is important. How does it know that? Maybe it read ahead in the script. It's more of a plot device than anything, I think.

As they begin to head back, the best characters in the franchise make their appearance: Team Rocket! I'm loving their new motto:

"Prepare for more trouble than you've ever seen!"
"And make it double, we're on the big screen!"​

They're unfortunately interrupted by the sailing boat, though. After a bit of talking about the troubles of impatient boys, Jessie remarks that getting involved with the opposite sex is asking for trouble (yes, they actually say "sex" in a 4Kids film. Unbelievable). Meowth retorts that Team Rocket don't need the opposite sex because they have each other. I'm more inclined to think that it was implying James is a girl (rather than Jessie being a man), because of times like this:

Zapdos shows up, and it's packing a lot of electricity. It lands on the Fire Shrine and everything turns blue and semi-floaty for some reason. Pikachu zaps Zapdos with questions, such as "where's Moltres?" and "why're you on Fire Island?" - how does Pikachu know that this is Moltres' place?

The Hikoukyu comes along and absorbs all of Zapdos' electricity, because easily capturing it and everyone there. Zapdos get.

Enter the collector. He frees the captive humans, and goes back to his control room to deal with Articuno.

More of a television report now. Lots of pokémon are heading towards the islands (including a swimming Ekans), and it's now snowing around the islands. Oak, Ivy and Delia are on a helicopter flying towards the islands, and Oak gives an explanation of the underwater current (not a river after all). The dub cuts out a part of his explanation, which reveals that life began because of a chemical reaction that was started when lightning struck volcanic seawater, and relates this to the powers of the three birds. Part of this explanation probably involves a shot we see of underwater bubbles arranging themselves into a double helix. This explanation was cut either because it isn't exciting adventures with Ash and the gang, or because it sounds a bit too much like not religion. I suggest the latter reason.

Slowking is being snowed on, and could use pants. It wouldn't be the first pokémon to wear clothes, though, and several pokémon develop their own clothes through evolution (such as Machoke's belt and short shorts, and on a related note Alakazam's spoons). And indeed, Slowking's ruff looks like it might be an accessory (either that or it swallowed an umbrella).

Melody reads the rhyming legend on the Hikoukyu, so now the heroes know there's big trouble going on. They decide to free the captive birds. Another part cut from the dub is Tracey's explanation that a Thundershock will split a Water Gun's water into hydrogen and oxygen, which then explodes with fire (Flamethrower), which is why Moltres' cage explodes when shot at with these three attacks. But as I said, it was cut from the dub, so Tracey's only attempt at usefulness ends up being discarded.

The Hikoukyu starts attacking Articuno with fire blasts. Lugia senses this, and starts twistering to the surface.

The freed Moltres breaks Zapdos' cage easily, and the two burst out of the Hikoukyu. They start attacking the Hikoukyu, which then crashes into Lightning Island and breaks the Lightning Shrine. The Lightning Sphere conveniently lands right next to Ash, so he grabs it. They make their escape on the sailing boat, which ends up falling off a waterfall.

Lugia finally reaches the surface, catches the boat with its twister and dumps it at the Shamouti Shrine. The heroes meet Slowking, and Ash places his two Spheres in their slots. He's one short.

Lugia starts beating up the bird, but the legend (which must be obeyed) says it'll fail, so it gets knocked out and buried at sea.

Everyone decides that Ash is the chosen one now. You could say that part of this "being the chosen one" thing involves his fairly unique ability to control aura (to an extent), and the Spheres react to people with strong aura, which is why they start glowing when held (we don't actually see anyone else handling them). It's just a thought.

They also decide that Lugia sounds like the song Melody plays. Melody plays it again, and revives Lugia. Lugia then explains what's going on, in very good English for a creature that has spent I don't know how long deep underwater. Ash isn't sure he wants to be a hero, but quickly dismisses his worries. Damn inconsistencies. Ash heads off to Ice Island.

The helicopter containing the professors and Delia crash, thus providing Team Rocket with a fan for their inflatable dinghy. They're a resourceful bunch, although I suppose they have to be to keep building big contraptions every week that fail to capture Pikachu.

Ash is stopped in his tracks by the ice being churned up, but Team Rocket show up with their ride. They really are just coolness.

They reach Ice Island and head up the pathway to the shrine. Ice Sphere get. But then the birds show up and blow up the dinghy. They head down the side of the island, and Lugia gives them a ride back. Why couldn't it have taken them to Ice Island as well? It has to contend with the three birds either way.

Aww, Team Rocket decided to let go. That's actually really moving, more so than anything the heroes manage. But they survive, which is great.

As Ash and Lugia are nearly back at Shamouti Island, Lawrence takes the opportunity to capture Lugia. Lugia is fainted again and sinks, and Ash is knocked out and left floating in the middle of a stormy icy sea. Brilliant.

Misty swims to the rescue and saves him. Ash heads up to the Shrine and places the final Sphere in its slot. All the snow is blasted away, and the Shrine starts leaking green liquid all over the place, which turns the stone columns around the Shrine into ice. Melody plays her song, which stops the fighting immediately and revives Lugia again. The whole thing is just another example of Anime Law #20: Law of Militaristic Unreliability.

Everything goes back to being a nice bright day. Ash goes for a ride on Lugia, who didn't really do that much in the end, if you think about it. The underwater current rises up to say hello. It was probably supposed to be like a rainbow, but it was utterly pointless. All the thousands of pokémon swim/fly back to wherever they came from - I feel sorry for the land-based pokémon who had strayed onto the ice and didn't manage to get a ride.

Delia and Oak briefly (finally) show up, and Delia tells Ash to save the world a little closer to home next time. See "Pokémon 3: The Movie: Spell of the Unown" for more details. Oak says he needs to get back to Pallet Town to tell everyone what happened, even though he hasn't actually asked what happened. Ash forgets to give Oak the GS Ball, which he was supposed to do at the time, and Ivy forgets to remind him.

Lawrence picks up the beginning of his collection: an Ancient Egyptian Mew trading card. There's no indicator of whether he's become a good guy now or not. But his Hikoukyu has been destroyed, so he's probably going to be out of trouble for at least a while.

Slowking and Team Rocket finish off the film by breaking the fourth wall. Then the credits roll - nothing interesting, but listen out for the song "Polkamon" by Weird Al Yankovic.

---

2
My impression of the film? Meh. It was something to watch, but I wasn't exactly keen to see it again for the purpose of writing this review. The first film was great for being so gritty and having Ash die in it, but this film was just a "save the Trio leader, save the world" plot that everyone has. It's boring. People have managed to do more interesting stuff with that plot, even Pokémon themselves.

It's not one of my favourite Pokémon films. I wouldn't say it's the worst, though (that honour jointly goes to "Pokémon 4Ever" (Celebi), "Jirachi: Wish Maker" and "Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea"). No, I'll tell you what this film is: it's bland. It remains half-interesting because it's one of the more original films, but there's not much else that's going for it. We didn't get to see a really good fight between the birds (they just kept attacking the islands or sea instead), their powers were apparently reduced to stupid levels so they could be caught, and that water current affecting the whole world isn't that good.

However, I've seen worse films ("The Blair Witch Project" is my all-time worst watch, although there's no Pokémon in it). It's not an inherently bad film, it's just not one of those ones you'll watch again and again.