The “Pokémon” franchise gets a reboot with “I Choose You!” as this aims to tell an alternate version of the story told in some of the very early episodes of the show. This is actually a good place for beginners to start as it introduces a lot of the “Pokémon” concepts and characters. However, I’ve just never been able to get into the franchise so this was still a pretty tough movie to sit through.

Ash Ketchum has just turned 10 and he’s out to collect and train as many Pokémon as he can. Ash will encounter failure and success on his epic quest. Along the way, he bonds with Pikachu and manages to find new friends and rivals.

There just seemed to be tons of Pokémon in this movie so I’m sure fans will love it but it was just all too much for me. There’s different Pokémon and then they also have different forms when they evolve. It all gets so confusing but then you realise that it’s all just to sell trading cards, stuffed toys and encourage you to buy the games. The human characters are not remotely interesting. The animation is pretty mediocre for a modern anime movie. There are a few visually impressive moments but most of it is fairly unremarkable.

Fans of the early “Pokémon” may find it nostalgic to see the start of Ash’s journey retold with some changes. This isn’t the first anime movie to redo parts of a series with some changes as we already had “Dragon Ball: The Path To Power”. If you’re not into “Pokémon” yet then as I say, this might be a good place to start but I’m certainly no expert on the franchise so I couldn’t say for certain. It’s clearly a movie that will be enjoyed by some people, I just know that I’m definitely not one of those people.