“Pokemon The Movie: Secrets Of The Jungle” Review: A nostalgia of Jungle Book mixed with Pokemon

With everything going on in the world of Pokemon and all the different animation projects in it, it’s easy to forget that a movie about Pokemon is still coming out. Now Netflix has released its first film in the franchise about Pokemon Secrets Of The Jungle, and while it’s known in some ways, it’s still a solid Pokemon story.

More precisely, films with a “new timeline” with Ash and Pikachu:

Where they are more independent. Frankly, if you want to download any of this, Pokemon Secrets Of The Jungle is Tarzan’s version of Pokemon… made. No, period and having as many hits as this film is both good and bad.

There is a sacred tree in the forest in the Pokemon world. And there is magical healing water protected by a tribe of solid but aggressive Pokemon called Zarude. However, one of them found a human child. So they decided to raise him, even if it meant kick them out of the group. He baptized this child Coco, and their journey began. Of course, like Tarzan, Coco can learn to speak Pokémon in any form and become the protector of the forest. Until Coco gets into trouble and meet, you guessed it, Ash Ketchum. Coco is exposed to the human world through very familiar terrain. And realizes that her “father” is not telling the truth.

Now Coco must grapple with the revelation that she is human. While learning her own story with Ash and saving the forest when threatened. The film opens and pulls “Hunt for Red October”, if you will. While we overhear a conversation between Coco and her father and Zarude talking to each other. This makes things a lot more exciting, and not reading subtitles adds a lot of depth. Especially since Dada is very emotional and cares for the other Zarude, his love for Coco becomes apparent.

And yes, it’s Zarude in a pink scarf. Do you have a problem with that?

Yes indeed! After all, it becomes typical after a specific scientific organization is discovered. After the healing water in the “heart tree”, Zarude calls home … Can you imagine what will happen next? The leading scientist is the bad guy and responsible for the deaths of Coco’s parents (murder in the Pokemon world? Yes, suppose this happened), and now we have to stop it.

The film falls off the rails here. Because dr. Zed (who you know from the start he’s evil because he’s named the villain Power Rangers) is noteworthy. He did all this to prove that “he was right” about the heart tree… and it never became clear what he was trying to prove. Also, he thinks that all Pokémon are useless (which is so weird it hurts), and well, honestly, that’s about it. That’s the whole depth of his character.

Of course, not all Pokemon villains are super deep, but even Giovanni has more personality and style than Zed, and it’s impressive to be an evil villain and sound nothing more than cliché. On top of that, his entire scheme revolves around a machine that will defeat an army of Jungle Pokémon (and Pikachu), but he still falls after a particular blow to Pikachu. Although we’ve seen in countless Pokemon stories that Pokemon can usually trounce robots, that doesn’t mean it’s all bad in terms of story.

As usual, Ash is the beacon here:

And although his role is minor because of the story, we hear some great things from him. Including the story about his father! We still don’t know where he is, but at least Ash remembers him! The things between Coco and her “dad” are great, and there are plenty of good moments here. Even when Zarude unites Forest Pokémon to save the forest as a whole, and when Coco risks everything to use the Pokemon train to save her father. How could it be?

With humans and Pokémon sharing the same life energy, the show was distracting all the time. Apart from that, the optics are excellent. Includes some great perspective shots of car chases and entertaining fight scenes.