(Average) Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!

Note: I watched this movie in my own language.

Movie in one sentence:
A hasty reboot of the original series' first few episodes, starring a pointless hero plot.

Movie in more sentences:
Young Ash Ketchum starts his first day as a Pokémon trainer and is gifted the feather of a legendary Pokémon after proving his worth by protecting his starter Pokémon from harm, Pikachu. He is told that the feather is an invitation to meet Ho-Oh and the story proclaims that those who get it are deemed "the rainbow hero".
During his travel to the giant bird, Ash experiences happiness and hardships, all equally important to help him realize what he left home for.
 

Very nice animation with respect for the art style of the old TV-series. I also loved that our Ash had the same voice actor from the original. After all, this lady got replaced too often for my liking and I didn't think they would put in the effort asking her for this flick.
Our Meowth sounded horrible, though. But I suppose that doesn't matter, since Team Rocket was the most pointless addition in the movie. I'm sad because of it.

Some people say these guys got shafted in the original first Pokémon movie, but this one took the cake. They had one of the best lines in the series, but here every piece of dialogue from them was a waste of time listening to.
They show up for 5 literal seconds, each say one line, maybe, and then they get fucking launched into space for whatever reason. Then what seems like half an hour passes, insert another 5 second scene with them, repeat. It was awful.

But alright, let's talk about the plot of the movie.
It's not well thought-out.

Ash Ketchum is presented as "the rainbow hero", but the only thing that they say about this title is that you'll be able to summon and fight the legendary Pokémon, Ho-Oh.
Hmmokey. And then? What's the "hero" aspect here? Ash didn't even capture it. Pikachu didn't become stronger by fighting it. This was an empty side quest Ash wasted his time on.

There is an end battle where Ash again fake-dies while being heroic, but it only exists because there was some spiteful sexy boy following them around, who messed up the ceremony. He grabbed Ash's feather, which caused it to become cursed, whereafter this shadow Pokémon -who had been following Ash around the entire time- had to cleanse it, but then.. becomes cursed by it itself? How?
I believe it was said that this shadow Pokémon becomes a customary spectator when the hero appears, so then, why is it evil? I can understand it giving Ash that weird fever dream when he lost a battle and started acting like a douche; I think that qualifies as a lesson, but why did this Pokémon want to brainwash all Pokémon in the area into killing people? Who assigned this evil thing to this spectator job? Why would the almighty Ho-Oh allow for that, even? Did this Pokémon just fail to cleanse the feather? Then, again, why was it assigned this job if it can't do its job?

Speaking of Ash's douchy little moments, I found them the most interesting scenes in the movie. It's a shame that this plot was over fast, I liked the idea of Ash moping over his failures. It's a realistic response to have for a child his age, who's so set on wanting to become the best.
I thought this was going to be the main struggle everyone would have to deal with, but Ash turned back to normal very quickly and thus reinstated his destiny as the rainbow hero. Baww. I guess heroes aren't allowed to be villains for even a little bit.

Ash was also given two travel companions that aren't Brock and Misty, which is fine in theory, but these people weren't all that exciting. They both got this sad backstory shoehorned in, concluding their character development.
I would've preferred if Ash made his Ho-Oh journey with Charmander's owner. Or his original rival, Gary Oak, even. Imagine a world where Gary and Ash become tight friends.

The end credits were funny, though. You get these short animations of Ash's original friends from the TV-series turning around and looking with an expression going: "What the fuck is this movie, then?"

All in all, I think a crazed Pokémon fan will tolerate this movie, I tolerated it, but it ended up doing little by wanting to do too much. It's a reboot that doesn't bring anything interesting to the table, thus didn't need to exist.

And can I just say that those "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" moments between Ash and Pikachu were pretty damn weird? The bad guy also gets one with his dog. Omai.
And because I know people will wonder: Pikachu talking wasn't as distracting in my language.