Oh wow, what a movie! This was not what I expected. I expected another lame pokemon crapola movie that would have a lame story and about 15 plot holes, but I was wrong. This movie was fantastic. Don't listen to the adult critics on this one. Every one of them seems to hate it. WELL, most adults aren't fans of pokemon and don't get up every Saturday morning to have a half an hour romp with Pikachu and company. If you are not a fan of Pokemon, then you will not like the pokemon movie. AHH! Well, that's my rant for the day but let's move on with it ok? I am a pokemon fan, I'll admit it. In fact, I love pokemon, and I'll try not to be bias on this movie. (I gave Pokemon the first movie one and a half stars, so obviously I'm not that pokemon gullible.)

Anyway, let's discuss the story, shall we? The first short movie is Pikachu and Pichu. Pikachu and the Pichu brothers get lost in the big city and all sorts of things go wrong. This pikachu short is a huge improvement over the other pikachu shorts, its just lots of funny slapstick humor. Then the real movie, The Spell of the Unown, involves a little girl named Molly and the fantasy world that she creates after she wishes for one just like her favorite story book after she finds the ancient Unown tiles that her father had for studying. (he's an ancient pokemon researcher) The Unown can make the feelings and wishes inside one's head come true. So, Entai, is the bad pokemon who was created by the unown (James describes them as alphabet soup without the soup) for Molly, as she believes that the Entai is her lost father. (you'll see why, but I don't want to ruin too much) Anyway, Molly also wishes for a mother and Ash's mom happens to be the closest one around. So she's kidnapped and is forced to be Molly's mother. Molly's mansion is changed into the crystal castle that resembles the one in her dream world. That's basically the story but it is much more complicated and well knit than I have described. (telling you anymore would ruin the story.) Anyway, like I said this movie is wonderful. It's just so entertaining. It has a complicated, yet simple story; it doesn't have any plot holes; and it has awesome battles.

The battles in pokemon 1 and 2 consisted of pokemon without their trainers just biting each other or trying to blast each other away. I find trainer controlled pokemon battles much more exciting than pokemon battles without trainers. I just think that trainer vs. trainer battles are so much tenser than pokemon who aren't listening to anyone just fighting each other. Anyway, these battles are really intense. They are actually more exciting than gym battles. I found my heart pounding during these battles. I also like the fact that Ash isn't the only one fighting. Brock and Misty get to take on Molly too. Remember, that all of Molly's wishes come true, so of course she has to cheat...

She wishes for ultra powerful pokemon and she wishes to be an adult because she feels that she was never old enough to battle. (it's cool to see Molly change from an 8 year old to an 18 year old in a second. It's very neat.) When fighting Misty, she wishes to be a water pokemon gym leader, the same age as Misty. Like I said, these battles are really intense and really exciting. The only problem I had was that we only see about half of Misty's battle vs. Molly. We see all of Brock's battle but not Misty's. I know I was supposed to assume that Misty lost but at least show us, don't cut out halfway. Oh well, nothing too horrible, that's actually my only complaint about the movie. By the way, the battle at the end that Ash has with Entai is awesome. I also must say that this movie is very stylish. I crystal castle with the two ominous towers is awesome and I love it when the pokemon balls materializes in Molly's hand, it's really neat looking. (and just wait until you see the gym battlefield materialize, wow!) I covered all the good points. I should mention that the animation looks better than the TV show but its still light years behind Ghost in the Shell or Perfect Blue. Anyway, please see this movie as fast as possible, especially if you love pokemon. It's really sad though, that WB severely under promoted this movie. I didn't even know it was coming out until about a week before it was going to be released and I never even see any ads for the movie on TV. Also, my friend and I went to the movie on opening night and the movie theater wasn't even full. I also noticed that Pokemon 3 is only shown at the movie theaters about 4 times a day while some of the other movies are shown around 10 times. It's too bad, because this is the best Pokemon movie yet and many won’t appreciate it. See it, as soon as you can. It's AWESOME!