Shout! Studios and Toei Animation have announced a new agreement that will see the 2023 Digimon Adventure 02 The Beginning anime film released by the aforementioned distributor across North America. The film will be released on digital and physical formats later this year, and both companies will also work together on pre-release activities. The English dub produced by Toei Animation specifically for the U.S. theatrical run held in November 2023 will be included in the forthcoming release and features Brian Donovan, Jeannie Tirado, Bryce Papenbrook, Tara Sands, Johnny Yong Bosch and Derek Stephen Prince, among others. Related: Digimon Adventure 02 The Beginning Anime Film Heads to U.S. Theaters Tomohisa Taguchi is the director of Digimon Adventure 02 The Beginning , reprising his role from Last Evolution Kizuna with Akatsuki Yamatoya also returning to pen the script. The animation was produced at Yumeta Company with Toei Animation acting as producer. The film...
- 1/31/2024
- by Humberto Saabedra
- Crunchyroll
Granted, its title sounds very much like a threat, even at 76 minutes, but the fourth installment of the once-mighty animated phenomenon actually marks an improvement on the feeble examples of big-screen Poke-mania that have preceded it.
More focused and better-looking than the others (not exactly a difficult feat), the ecologically themed "Pokemon 4 Ever", which introduces the time-traveling, forest-dwelling character known as Celebi, also manages to splurge on some extensive, if bizarre, computer animation.
Despite the improvement, by this point most will regard the film's theatrical arrival (word has it that yet another is in the works) as an instance of flogging a dead pocket monster, and Miramax, which has stepped in after Warner Bros. Pictures distributed the first three, will likely have to wait until it plays Pikachu at the video store for the dollars to start kicking in.
Reincorporating the natural elements and themes of cooperation and friendship that are more closely aligned to video game creator Satoshi Tajiri's original concepts, the new adventure takes ace Pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum, his buddies Misty and Brock and, of course, trusty and only mildly annoying Pikachu to a magical forest. The place had been the domain of Celebi until he was required to flee an evil Pokemon hunter by zipping 40 years into the future, taking Sam, an unwitting young visitor to the forest, along with him.
Ash and company help restore Celebi's strength thanks to the miracle cure of the forest's Lake of Life, but then along comes the ultra-evil Iron Mask Marauder, who's hellbent on capturing the creature and determined to obliterate anything that stands in his way.
It still makes for some truly odd, at times confusing, kids entertainment (a situation no doubt made even more so by the English-language interpretations and dubbed American voices), but at least this time there's some centered storytelling to go along with all the weird stuff.
The latter would have to include an extended computer-animated sequence in which Celebi, forced to use his powers for evil, turns himself into a gigantic destructive twig monster. It's certainly eye-catching, especially by the "Pokemon" movies' usual low-tech standards, and at the same time sort of perversely out of place given the gentle hug-a-tree tone of the rest of the piece.
Still, at the rate the feature series seems to be going, the next installment just might be half-bad.
POKEMON 4 EVER
Miramax
Credits:
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Adaptation director: Jim Malone
Screenwriter: Hideki Sonoda
Adaptation screenwriter: Michael Haigney
Producers: Yukako Matsusako, Takemoto Mori
Executive producers: Masakazu Kubo, Takashi Kawaguchi, Alfred R. Kahn, Norman J. Grossfeld
Editors: Yutaka Ito, Yumiko Fuse
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Music: Shinji Miyazaki
Voices: Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Maddie Blaustein, Ikue Otani, Tara Jayne, Dan Green
Running time -- 76 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
More focused and better-looking than the others (not exactly a difficult feat), the ecologically themed "Pokemon 4 Ever", which introduces the time-traveling, forest-dwelling character known as Celebi, also manages to splurge on some extensive, if bizarre, computer animation.
Despite the improvement, by this point most will regard the film's theatrical arrival (word has it that yet another is in the works) as an instance of flogging a dead pocket monster, and Miramax, which has stepped in after Warner Bros. Pictures distributed the first three, will likely have to wait until it plays Pikachu at the video store for the dollars to start kicking in.
Reincorporating the natural elements and themes of cooperation and friendship that are more closely aligned to video game creator Satoshi Tajiri's original concepts, the new adventure takes ace Pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum, his buddies Misty and Brock and, of course, trusty and only mildly annoying Pikachu to a magical forest. The place had been the domain of Celebi until he was required to flee an evil Pokemon hunter by zipping 40 years into the future, taking Sam, an unwitting young visitor to the forest, along with him.
Ash and company help restore Celebi's strength thanks to the miracle cure of the forest's Lake of Life, but then along comes the ultra-evil Iron Mask Marauder, who's hellbent on capturing the creature and determined to obliterate anything that stands in his way.
It still makes for some truly odd, at times confusing, kids entertainment (a situation no doubt made even more so by the English-language interpretations and dubbed American voices), but at least this time there's some centered storytelling to go along with all the weird stuff.
The latter would have to include an extended computer-animated sequence in which Celebi, forced to use his powers for evil, turns himself into a gigantic destructive twig monster. It's certainly eye-catching, especially by the "Pokemon" movies' usual low-tech standards, and at the same time sort of perversely out of place given the gentle hug-a-tree tone of the rest of the piece.
Still, at the rate the feature series seems to be going, the next installment just might be half-bad.
POKEMON 4 EVER
Miramax
Credits:
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Adaptation director: Jim Malone
Screenwriter: Hideki Sonoda
Adaptation screenwriter: Michael Haigney
Producers: Yukako Matsusako, Takemoto Mori
Executive producers: Masakazu Kubo, Takashi Kawaguchi, Alfred R. Kahn, Norman J. Grossfeld
Editors: Yutaka Ito, Yumiko Fuse
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Music: Shinji Miyazaki
Voices: Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Maddie Blaustein, Ikue Otani, Tara Jayne, Dan Green
Running time -- 76 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
- 10/7/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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