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  05-13-2007, 01:30 PM
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As many fans can attest, the Pokémon movies have been getting steadily better, at least dubbing-wise. Last year, we got arguably the best movie in the franchise yet, Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea isn't as good as Lucario, but it has its own charms and is an excellent entry in the series.

The story opens on the high seas, where the pirate Phantom captures a strange egg only to lose it to a Pokémon Ranger named Jack Walker. To hide the egg, Jackie joins a traveling water circus, which just happens to meet up with Ash, May, Brock, and Max. However, Phantom soon crashes the party, and in the ensuing chase the egg hatches in May's arms to reveal the Prince of the Sea, Manaphy. Thinking that May is its mother, Manaphy ends up guiding our heroes towards an undersea temple where the Sea Crown rests. He who gains the power of the Sea Crown will control the world's oceans, and Phantom wants that power for himself. As Ash and Jackie team up to stop the dangerous pirate, May struggles to accept that she and Manaphy will soon be separated forever.

The film's biggest positive is its sense of adventure and fun. Previous entries have had villains/antagonists who are very angst-ridden, tragic, or cruel. Here, Phantom is just a good, old-fashioned, bad-guy pirate with some really cool technology: he doesn't have a tragic past, a chip on his shoulder, or a plan to wipe out all life on Earth. This general attitude and set-up gives Temple of the Sea a lightness lacking in the other movies. Phantom's antics almost remind me of Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean (and I would be shocked if PotC didn't at least partially inspire this movie), with Jack Walker acting like a combination of Jack Sparrow and William Turner. This is best seen during the opening scene in the movie, with Phantom cackling at his coup only for Jack to appear, steal the egg, and make a mockery of Phantom's crew in a very humorous way.

However that's only half the film. The other half is taken up with the May/Manaphy relationship, which many people have said mirrors the plot of Jirachi Wish Maker, in which Max and Jirachi bond and are then forced to separate. The many similarities to Jirachi Wish Maker include: an appearance by Brendan (the male trainer from Ruby/Sapphire) during the opening narration and a plot that takes the Legendary Pokémon to an out-of-the-way place to fulfill its destiny. It even features an appearance by Kyogre at the end, whose counterpart was the main focus of the previous movie.

But there are big differences, too, most obviously how May treats Manaphy like a beloved child while Max and Jirachi were essentially two little kids playing with each other. This change adds a lot of new wrinkles to the plot, such as scenes of May teaching Manaphy how to talk or May getting broken up near the middle of the film when she starts to consider what will happen when they reach the Sea Temple. Manaphy itself is also a bit more interesting than Jirachi, due to its endearing naiveté about the outside world (the scene where Manaphy runs smack into the submarine window and starts to cry is so cute) and its Heart Swap ability, which amusingly transfers people's souls to other bodies. The May/Manaphy relationship also seems deeper than the Max/Jirachi relationship—possibly because of this film's longer running time—making their separation that much more intense.

While I do like the increased running time for the movies now that the Pikachu shorts have been moved to Japan's ANA Festival, this movie does seem to drag, especially during the Manaphy-dominated middle. And while Manaphy's Heart Swap yields some really funny scenes, it matters little to the overall plot. My biggest complaint though is with the finale, where Ash suddenly jumps from the sidelines into the spotlight and does all the work. This leaves May, the "mother" of the featured Pokémon, and Jackie, who's in the freaking title, with little to do. Ash even gains an energy barrier power thing to battle Phantom with. It seemed like the writ
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