When A Movie Feels Like Filler

A Pokemon movie can have a legendary setting, a mythical Pokemon, and a big villain chase, then still feel like it’s spinning its wheels. That’s the vibe I wrestle with as I continue my Pokemon journey solo and review Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea on The Couch Critics.

I walk through the core setup: Manaphy becomes the key to reaching a hidden sea temple tied to massive power, a pirate pushes the chaos forward, and Ash Ketchum and friends get swept up as they protect and befriend the new Pokemon. On paper, it’s a clean adventure plot. In practice, I explain why Manaphy didn’t hook me the way other movie centerpieces have, and why the story’s structure makes the runtime feel longer than it should.

One detail I actually appreciate is how the film handles Pokemon communication. I’m blunt about it: I don’t like when Pokemon talk like humans. It’s distracting and a little creepy, even when the movie tries to justify it. From there, I dig into the bigger pacing issue, where the movie keeps stacking extra conflicts after what feels like a natural ending, which drains tension and makes even the battles feel less exciting.

I wrap with my final score of two out of six Pokeballs and tease next week’s review of Hoopa and the Clash of Ages. Subscribe to The Couch Critics, share the show with a fellow Pokemon fan, and leave a review, then tell me: which Pokemon movie actually feels like a real movie to you?

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Transcript

Why These Movies Rarely Impress

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new episode of The Couch Critics. I'm your host, Nathan, and on today's episode, I'm continuing my Pokemon journey by myself for now. Today I'm going to be talking about Pokemon the movie, Pokemon Ranger, and the Temple of the Sea. Before I get started on this specific review,

Manaphy And The Sea Temple Chase

SPEAKER_01 0:50

let me tell you why I already know that I'm probably not going to give any of these movies, maybe a couple, but hardly any of these movies, a perfect six out of six Pokeballs. It's because all of these movies feel like just extremely long Pokemon episodes. And that's exactly what this movie felt like. I even hesitate to call these movies. Like they're like episodes, hour-long episodes. It's like when they take a SpongeBob SquarePants, which is usually a 30-minute show, and they make it over an hour long. It feels like over an hour long. So this movie is about Pokemon Manaphy. Now, again, these movies uh lower on the list, even though I'm starting with them, they're very low on the list of best to worst. These are still in like the not that great category, in my opinion. A lot of these movies have to deal with like the newer generation of Pokemon. So I had never heard of Manaphy. Half of these Pokemon don't really have that interesting of powers.

The Pokemon Talking Problem

SPEAKER_01 1:44

And so honestly, this Pokemon to me doesn't really do much. And all this episode, again, I'm not gonna call it a movie, all this episode is about is this pirate trying to get Manaphy so it can help him get to this sea temple that I guess is supposed to give him this unlimited power or something. And then, you know, Ash Catchum and his friends get mixed into the chaos, befriend Manaphy. And one thing I do appreciate about this one, uh, other than you know, the new Pokemon that was kind of interesting, but again, didn't really have any power. The one thing I do appreciate about this one is that none of the Pokemon could talk. If you listen to previous episodes, you know one of the reasons why I didn't like the other ones is because the Pokemons could talk. Now, again, they were talking through telekinesis, so they weren't really like moving their mouths, but they could talk. And I don't like when Pokemon could talk. This movie had

Repeated Conflicts And Lost Momentum

SPEAKER_01 2:35

a Pokemon that could not talk, it just repeated its name over and over again, which is the way I like a Pokemon. Even though towards the end, spoiler alert, it does start learning how to speak. And I don't, I just don't like it. It's just off-putting to me. It's just weird for a Pokemon to talk. So I'm not really gonna have much thoughts on this movie, and and I'm sorry that so far I haven't had really any positive things to say about these movies, except the fact for this one that the Pokemon couldn't necessarily talk. So this movie was just kind of boring to me. Again, all of these movies so far, it's like they try to do this thing and then they get to the thing that they were trying to get to, but then they're like, Oh man, that will happen really fast. So we gotta make up something else to happen that keeps the movie going. So there's a lot of like ending resolution, and then another conflict happens, ending resolution to that, and then another conflict happens. And it's just repeated conflicts over and over again. And that's why these movies feel so long, and that's why, again, I don't consider them movies per se, I consider them over an hour-long episodes. I was not interested in anything going on really, not even the Pokemon battles were that interesting to me. At least with the other ones, you know, you had Mewtwo in one of the episodes, and then you had this kind of robotic character in another one. And so those were fun, those are interesting Pokemon battles, at least. But yeah, these movies are kind of make me regret taking season six to to talk about these movies. But here we are. I'm going to continue to push through this Pokemon journey because, unlike Ash Ketchum, I am determined to be a Pokemon

Final Rating And Next Week Tease

SPEAKER_01 4:08

master by the end of this season. And Ash Ketchum's been trying to do it for years and still has not become Pokemon Master. So those are my short but sweet thoughts on Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea or something. And I'm going to give Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea probably two Pokeballs out of six. Because again, it wasn't that interesting to me. So next Sunday, I'm going to be talking about yet another Pokemon movie. Pokemon, the movie Hoopa and the Clash of Ages. This again is introduced introducing a Pokemon that I had never heard of before, and I've already watched it. I'm not going to tell you what I thought because I want you to listen to next week's episode of The Couch Critics. Where every movie gets its close-up.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Where are the couch critics rolling for?