Pokemon The Movie 2000 (Animated) (DVD)

Pokémon 2000 is second installment of 4 Kids Entertainment’s Pokémon movie series. When they made this second installment they added the tag “One person can make all the difference” and this is a very interesting tag to have, and you shall find out why.

The movie starts with the villain (whose name is not mentioned in the movie, however in pre-release was known as Lawrence III). The villain is flying above the orange islands quoting ...
...Moltres, Zapdos, Articuno and Lugia.
This is the legend. "Disturb not the harmony of Fire, Ice, or Lightning lest these Titans wreck destruction upon the world in which they clash. Though the water's Great Guardian shall arise to quell the fighting alone its song will fail. Thus the Earth shall turn to Ash. O, Chosen One, into thine hands bring together all three. Their treasures combined tame the beast of the sea." This legend is ... more

Pokémon 2000 is second installment of 4 Kids Entertainment’s Pokémon movie series. When they made this second installment they added the tag “One person can make all the difference” and this is a very interesting tag to have, and you shall find out why.

The movie starts with the villain (whose name is not mentioned in the movie, however in pre-release was known as Lawrence III). The villain is flying above the orange islands quoting an old legend regarding the main Pokémon in the film, Moltres, Zapdos, Articuno and Lugia.
This is the legend. "Disturb not the harmony of Fire, Ice, or Lightning lest these Titans wreck destruction upon the world in which they clash. Though the water's Great Guardian shall arise to quell the fighting alone its song will fail. Thus the Earth shall turn to Ash. O, Chosen One, into thine hands bring together all three. Their treasures combined tame the beast of the sea." This legend is the base for the story as it is referred to a lot over the course of the storyline.
The villain wishes to capture Lugia for himself however he will have to capture the other three first. By capturing these three, he would disrupt the balance of power between them and cause the “Great Guardian” Lugia to come forth and allow him to capture it.

He starts by targeting Moltres, luring it out and then sending out some of his futuristic technology to capture the fire based bird. After he does this, our heroes are introduced to the story, and so we now have the key elements for the story.

Our heroes arrive in the Orange Islands by accident after being washed in from a storm and come at the time of a festival ceremony to celebrate the Chosen One coming forth. Ash agrees to play the role of the Chosen One and volunteers himself to collect the 3 ancient orbs (Fire, Ice and Lightning) from the 3 shrines on the Orange Islands. These 3 orbs along with an ancient melody will help Lugia to restore balance should the time come for Lugia to come forth.

So with our heroes trying to collect the 3 orbs so that they can protect the balance of power, and the villain trying to collect the 3 legendary birds so that he can disrupt the balance of power and collect Lugia, our story really starts to liven up.

Our hero Ash ventures out to get his first orb from Fire Island which is missing its ruler, Moltres. He reaches the shrine with a little help from Pikachu and picks up the orb. However, quickly after he gets the ancient fire orb, Zapdos arrives on the island and claims it for his own. Ash and Pikachu try to communicate with Zapdos to find out what is going on, however as soon as we start to get a picture of what is going on from Zapdos, Lawrence III comes along again and captures his second of the three legendary birds. However whilst doing so he also picks up some extra and uninvited guests. Our heroes have been captured by the villain too.

We now find out what is going on and why the villain is doing such evil deeds. After a short explanation from the villain we are left with the two captured birds and our heroes. Ash tries to help out Moltres and Zapdos by attacking the chambers which hold them with his Pokémon (Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Pikachu and Charizard). After many attacks Moltres’ chamber finally gives way and allows the bird to escape. Moltres also launches a fire attack at Zapdos’ chamber and frees the other bird. However this sparks a war between the birds and disrupts the balance, not only that, but it causes the ship to crash on to Thunder Island. When crashing, it collides with the shrine there and the orb rolls nicely to Ash.

With the war breaking out between the birds, Lugia is summoned forth, but referring back to the legend, Lugia cannot save the world by itself. This is where the Chosen One is needed.

With Ash having 2 of the 3 orbs, the 3 legendary birds waging war on each other, Lugia struggling to restore the balance, Lawrence watching patiently for his chance to capture Lugia and time running out, what will happen? Will Ash manage to acquire the third orb in time? Will Ash be able to get back with it in time should he acquire it? Will Lugia be able to fend off the birds so Ash can have a chance of grabbing that third orb? Will the three birds destroy the world and Lugia? Will Lawrence capture his Lugia and legendary bird set?
So many questions, so much action, so tense…Watch the thrilling action and find out for yourself!

Certificate: PG (United Kingdom) / G (United States)
Run Time: 99 mins
Directors: Michael Haigney and Kunihiko Yuyama.
Writer: Takeshi Shudo
Voice Cast:
Veronica Taylor - Ash Ketchum
Rachael Lillis - Misty/Jessie
Ted Lewis - Tracey
Neil Stewart - Lawrence III
Ikue Ootani - Pikachu
Amy Birnbaum - Melody
Eric Stuart - James/Squirtle/Brock
Eric Rath - Lugia
Nathan Price - Slowking
Madeleine Blaustein - Meowth

The soundtrack for this does not have many songs from the movie; however in the official soundtrack disk they created they included many popular Pokémon songs and included some from the original movie. However the ones from this movie that are notable are: The Power of One, The Chosen One and Polkamon.

The DVD itself has a few other features included. It has a preview for Pokémon 3 The Movie: Spell of the Unknown. There is a theatrical trailer and a music gallery on the DVD, which aren’t anything special but are not too bad. Also included on the DVD are the following dubbed languages: Dutch, French, German and Italian. There are also subtitles for those 4 languages, and also for Arabic as well. That’s about it for the DVD; however it is still a nice package.

The graphics for the film are not terribly great; however they are not bad to say how old the film is. Of course with the new films for Pokémon it looks quite poor in quality but it is definitely watchable.
The sound is also quite good, the presentation to match sound with picture is great as you would expect and the soundtracks are nicely linked in with the film.
Personally I really enjoyed this when I was younger and was really addicted to Pokémon. I watch it now and then when new Pokémon games or movies come out so that I can get back in the mood, and I still think that it is a good film, still with the magic that it had. It is a film mainly for children of course, but I think that anyone who loved Pokémon back in the day but never saw it, should have a watch. It is quite action packed, as usual with any animated movie you can start to predict outcomes but I still think that this one has a nice storyline.

As a roundup, this is a compelling animated movie that is quite nice looking and a must watch for Pokémon fans despite the length of time it has been out. I would give this film a 7.5/10 score and to say that you can pick the DVD up for £7.48 (not including postage and packaging) from Amazon, this is great value and definitely one for the collection.

Thank You,
Seanbv1. 

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