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Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai is the tenth Pokémon movie and first movie of Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl. It premiered in Japanese theaters on July 14, 2007. It was aired in North America on February 24, 2008 on Cartoon Network and it was released on DVD on May 27, 2008.
Plot[]
In Alamos Town, a large shrine to Dialga and Palkia, the Space-Time Towers, sits. But when Dialga and Palkia begin to battle in their dimension, the fight spills over into the Pokémon world, trapping Alamos Town away from the rest of the world. A Darkrai that lives in town tries to help, but is ultimately blamed by the town as the cause of the problem. Can Ash Ketchum and his friends save Alamos Town before it is destroyed, and prove Darkrai's intentions?
Cast[]
| Character | Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Ash Ketchum | Rica Matsumoto | Sarah Natochenny |
| Pikachu | Ikue Otani | |
| Brock | Yuji Ueda | Bill Rogers |
| Dawn | Megumi Toyoguchi | Emily Jenness |
| Jessie | Megumi Hayashibara | Michele Knotz |
| James | Shin-ichiro Miki | James Carter Cathcart |
| Meowth | Inuko Inuyama | James Carter Cathcart |
| Narrator | Unsho Ishizuka | Rodger Parsons |
| Darkrai | Koji Ishizaka | Scott Williams |
| Tonio | Koji Yamamoto | Rich McNanna |
| Alice | Rosa Kato | Khristine Hvam |
| Baron Alberto | Kōichi Yamadera | Ax Norman |
| Kai | Ryuji Akiyama | Sean Reyes |
| Maury | Hiroshi Yamamoto | Joshua Swanson |
| Allegra | Shoko Nakagawa | Emily Williams |
| Alicia | Chiharu Suzaka | Kayzie Rogers |
Reception[]
Carl Kimlinger, in his review of the film for Anime News Network, gave the film an overall grade of B−. He described the film's plot as "simple enough for kids to follow with ease", and added: "parents will find the message of teamwork and understanding, as well as the franchise's usual refusal to paint anyone as a villain, quite reassuring." Kimlinger also praised the film's imagery and use of CGI, writing: "Hardly a minute passes without a Pokémon spitting a shiny ball of CGI energy at something", and described a fight sequence between two Pokémon as "a fantastic tableau of spiraling darkness and swirling smears of soap-on-water rainbow light". However, he criticized the overall animation, saying: "[Oriental Light and Magic] never bothered to question how the meticulously rendered CG architecture and frequent bursts of 3-D action would mesh with the simplistic character designs and gaudy cartoon aesthetic of the Pokémon themselves."
Jenny Sanders, writing for Den of Geek, gave the film a score of 4 stars out of 5. She wrote that the film "is very well structured, less-than-obviously scripted and has an impressively epic orchestral soundtrack", and praised the film's special effects and scenery, but stated that they "jar terribly with the rather more basic drawing employed for the characters and Pokémon themselves, which seem to have been lifted from the original creations." She concluded: "Despite its aesthetic faults and somewhat clichéd elements, The Rise of Darkrai is absorbing and entertaining – even if nobody over the age of eight will have any idea what’s going on by two-thirds of the way through."
External links[]
- M10 at Bulbapedia, the Pokémon wiki.
- Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai at the Internet Movie Database
- Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia