Detective Pikachu was released May 10th, and oh boy was it a mess. A fun mess, but still a mess. Beware of light spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

Let’s talk about the first scene. It was very sloppy. Our main character, Tim, is walking through the woods with his friend when they run into a Cubone. Tim gets upset that he’s friend set this up so Tim could catch it, and finally get a Pokemon partner. It was like they wrote the movie but then went “Oh shoot, we have to address that Tim doesn’t want a partner,” and sloppily threw it in. They immediately transition to Tim getting an awkwardly written and preformed phone call telling him that his dad was in an accident and. . . dead.

Tim goes to Ryme City. This is where his dad was stationed as a police officer, and in this city, catching Pokemon and battling them is a thing of the past. Here, Pokemon and humans are friends, much like dogs and humans in our world. The whole city design is well done, and really beautiful. The neon colors and tall glass buildings are amazing visuals.

Tim goes to his dad’s apartment, and eventually runs into Pikachu, played by Ryan Reynolds. Pikachu’s character is. . . tricky. Before this moment, it was pretty obvious that this was a kid’s movie, but with the introduction of Reynold’s character, the line between kid’s and teen movie becomes extremely blurred.

One big problem is that Ryan Reynold’s starred in the 2016 film Deadpool. Deadpool is rated R, but yet Deadpool’s character, and Pikachu’s, is very similar. A lot of the jokes in the first half hour of the film are adult. Adult jokes in kid movies are nothing new, and are totally fine, and can add charm to your film, but it does not work for Detective Pikachu. It leaves so much to be desired. The movie steps so close to the edge of PG-13 territory that it leaves you wondering why they just didn’t take it.

When you realize this, it makes you realize another problem this film has. Why is it for kids? I went opening weekend to this movie, and saw maybe only five kids. The Pokemon franchise is for kids obviously, but this movie was mostly appealing to adults and teens who played the games growing up. It seems the writers knew this too, since there were so many jokes aimed at adults. The movie just seems so empty, and pulling towards something it wanted to do but couldn’t.

After you meet Pikachu, you get introduced to the next character. I honestly forgot her name, she was so forgettable, but after a quick Google search, I found out her name was Lucy. She was written as a fun sidekick/love interest, and that’s it, despite the fact that she solved most of the mystery. She is still written off as a sidekick just because Tim got to fight the big bad super villain at the end. It was a pretty disgusting treatment of a character, and even though I did not find her very appealing, she deserved so much better.

Speaking of the film’s mystery, it was terrible. You could see almost all the twists and turns from a mile away, and the ones you couldn’t where just so bad that you didn’t expect the movie to take that turn.

Okay, I’ve gotten most of the negative out of the way. One last positive thing about this film is the Pokemon designs were phenomenally done. They adapted each and every one that appeared in this movie very well.

I gave this movie a 4/10. I think it’s a fun movie, but once the first hour is done, it becomes very tiring to sit through.

The Eric Andre Show is a satirical comedy following a talk show host known as Eric Andre. It is a high energy parody of most, if not all, late night television shows such as Jimmy Kimmel, James Corbin, Jimmy Fallon, Conan, Trevor Noah, you get the idea.

I believe that one of the things that makes The Eric Andre Show unique, is how Eric purely dissects the comedic process. Many times throughout the show, you’ll notice that Eric makes a mockery of typical tropes that are supposed to be sincerely funny in other shows. A good example of this, is his satirical bit he does at the beginning of every episode, in which Eric gives an opening typical comedic monologue to the likes of the everyday late night talk show host, except for the twist of it getting derailed. He intentionally screws up punchlines, and tells all around poor taste jokes so that his co-host Hannibal Buress can just call him out, or he has an an outrageous visual gag (such as an attempted assassination, or a Scientologist take over) derail his efforts to preform stand up comedy. I think because of how we are conditioned to just see all jokes be well… jokes, that have a traditional setup, then punchline, I think that immense diversion from the normal comic setup is what makes Eric Andre unique.

So, along with this, it seems as Eric possesses a complete, and utter disregard for how comedy is handled in the mainstream industry, as instead of doing a sketch, or a comedic bit for the sake of his audience, he pulls ridiculous stunts and gags, just for what seems like his own enjoyment.

A really good example of this is from season four, episode five, in which Eric just starts off by going to a car repair shop, and asking the owners how much it would cost to fit a busted up part of his vehicle. While they are explaining this to him, he just starts destroying the car with a crowbar, asking how much it would cost to repair now, with each additional strike he takes to it. And he just keeps going until he gathers a big enough crowd to further the joke, by instead of attempting a payoff to the end of it, he just flips the entire thing, and furthers it into even more insanity, and he strangely acts like he had no idea that this was even happening, and pretends to desperately call for help as “some rough teenagers” destroyed his car.

One last note here before I send off and finish this article, to rewatch clips of this show ad infinitum on Youtube, as I drift off to sleep tonight; it’s just that this show has a very different energy from what you’d just think at first glance. At first glance, it seems like Eric has essentially gone insane, and had gotten a camera crew to film his raving lunacy. But there’s something weirdly controlled about this insanity. As I’ve mentioned, Eric has this co-host, who is comedian Hannibal Buress, who is somewhat of the really-not-really voice of reason throughout the show. As in, while retaining the same spontaneous humor as Eric, Hannibal has a more “chill” or “subtle” energy to him, as sort of a counter contrast to Eric Andre’s constant energetic actions.

He is the polar opposite, yet ties the entire show together. This is shown in its purest form by one scene, and one scene alone, which was during the time when Eric was giving one of his “interviews” to an unsuspecting guest, Lauren Conrad, and at a specifically, lets just say “tense” moment, when Eric was pretty much making the poor woman feel like she’s going insane, she looks to her side to find any sanity in the one other guy in the room, just to see Hannibal, standing there, completely unphased by the entire situation, and world around him, just chomping at an entire head of lettuce while standing up. Lauren looks to Hannibal, and all he says in his most dazed fashion is “Man you gotta eat the lettuce… it’s like straight up… it’s lettuce.”