I had heard really bad things about this movie and how it was so bad even pokemon fans resented it. Being one myself, I can certainly agree with everybody. As bad as the pokemon movies have been before, they never really did anything to get the mythology wrong. In the first movie, it's clearly established that Mewtwo is one of a kind but now here's another one. I guess other scientists did the same thing? Wouldn't that make her Mewthree? Even for a short movie, it's pretty padded. I guess the animation is nice, but that's about it. As someone who personally thought the original was mediocre at best, I had no choice but to hate this. It's the worst thing that ever had the pokemon name on it.Team Rocket serve no purpose, but it doesn't really matter. Ash, Iris, and Cilan don't serve any purpose either! The fight scenes are just monotonous with Mewtwo and the head Genesect just flying around for too long. There are so many pokemon movies, you get to the point where you just can't reprise old stuff and that's just what this movie was. There's even a scene where Genesect gets between a blast with the head Genesect and Mewtwo, directly lifted from the original movie! Mewtwo can Mega Evolve. Why would she need to do that? Why does she keep going back to her original form? I think even the people who worked on this movie admitted this was a gamble and knew people wouldn't like it. If a idea seems bad, just don't make it. *1/2

The Pokemon movies can get pretty formulaic, but I still like to see them because the animation gets a humongous upgrade from the anime series (although that rift diminished in the spectacular XY anime series). This movie sees Ash and co. exploring a Central Park-esque Pokemon Hills. Trouble looms, however, as a group of Genesect are set on making Pokemon Hills their new home, disrupting the Pokemon ecosystem and potentially the power plant beneath it that runs the city. It's up to Ash, Cilan, Iris, the Pokemon Hills director Eric and Mewtwo to put a stop to it.The Genesect's motivation at the beginning of the film is clearly established; they've been fossils for 300 million years and have been woken up by Team Plasma and weaponized. This is clear enough, but having the Team Plasma scientists play a bigger role could have greatly enhanced what is a middling entry in the series.Mewtwo's appearance in this film is understandable given that they wanted to advertise its mega form. What was unnecessary, however, was erasing the relationship Ash and Mewtwo built up through two movies plus several other appearances. The way Mewtwo and Genesect's conflicts were resolved were also very unclear. Overall, this is a passable film and one I'd put around the middle of the Pokemon pack. It didn't take full advantage of its unique setting, but it did shed some light on Genesect, a Pokemon that even in the games is very mysterious.

After the cultural landslide that was the cinematic release of Pokémon: The First Movie (hands up if you've still got a Burger King tie-in toy!), all subsequent Pokémon movies have struggled for relevance. Lacking in the first film's energy and urgency from being released in the thick of the rampant zeitgeist, the later straight-to-DVD offerings have largely slumped somewhat – still lots of fun for allegiant fans, but increasingly obligatory, and, arguably not unlike the games, inextricably knotted in a formula too restrictive for much innovation. Despite the franchise's motto, few would dispute that if you've seen one, you've effectively caught 'em all.Genesect and the Legend Awakened, sixteenth(!!) film in the series, does not jostle this formula, but does its best to breathe some life and gumption into it. Unlike the customary expansive, globe-trotting Pokémon movie narrative, Genesect marks a rare exception where lowering the scope from "the fate of the world is at stake!" is actually beneficial. We still get the familiar 'thrilling but vaguely defined mythology' (the origins of the titular Genesect – fossil Pokémon who have been weaponized by humans…? – are glossed over in an infuriatingly quick aside), naturally. But, after an impressively gripping airborne mountain skirmish, the action is confined to a Pokémon natural reserve, and the bustling metropolitan city surrounding it, lending some interesting consequential collateral damage to the inevitably destructive Pokémon showdowns, and making the action all the more claustrophobically exciting. Naturally, there's little motivating the plot or conflict, but the trappings make it worthwhile. The animation demonstrates a marked increase in quality, and is gorgeously engaging in its fluidity, integrating more seamlessly with CGI to bring rich texture to the backgrounds.As always, half the fun is playing your own game of 'Who's that Pokémon?' with all the cameoing creatures flitting by in the background – a shout out to a particularly valiant Feraligatr thrust into central hero status here. Similarly, the Genesect make for engagingly off-kilter enemies – uniquely eerie and alien in their fusion of robotic and insectoid tics, aided by some creatively skittering sound editing choices, even if their respective personalities, defined in the broadest of possible strokes, verge on irritatingly bland. Inevitably, the fun lies not in the moralizing melodrama, but in their fighting, with their myriad of abilities making for some furiously energetic and entertaining battles, changing shape like Transformers, ripping through the air, and letting rip with concussive energy blasts all the while. And at the other end of the ring: back by popular demand, the iconic Mewtwo (now, seemingly with added Poké-sex change, and mega-evolution to boot…) – a more than suitably thrilling and mobile sparring partner. Whether spitting cynical diatribes about creation and denial of humanity or blasting one another, the film sparks to life when the two titans clash.It's a shame that the human characters fail to engage even more than usual. Diluting boy-hero Ash of his initial whiney exuberance may be an attempt at having the character slowly grow up, but recasting him as a perennial Mother Theresa type patron saint of all Pokémon is a far less interesting lead to connect with. This, in tandem with the lack of the show's goofy cutaway humour (the movies are SERIOUS BUSINESS, you know), an extraneously shoehorned in Team Rocket, and interplay with the particularly drab 'Gen V' Misty and Brock surrogates Iris and Cilan makes the filler character building scenes bridging the action drag far more than usual. As with most anime dialogue, kids will infuse the script's hyperbolically proclamative one-liners with their own inspirational profundity ("it's time…to push it…to the limit!"), but it's unlikely that even the most naïve or forgiving of audiences will fail to sneer at the film's climax and its aggressively trite moral about the importance of friendship, complete with a 'profound worldview' pilfered from Superman Returns of all things (bleh).Such in-depth concerns may be a moot point, as Genesect and the Legend Awakened comes with a pretty infallible built-in audience. For kids or adult fans of the series, there's lots of fun to be had here, and the vivacity of the battles and exhilaration of the return of Mewtwo should help diffuse the over-familiarity of story. To those three under-a-Crustle dwellers who have yet to either yay or nay at the world of Pocket Monsters: this is unlikely to convert you as Poké-fans (or make even a mote of sense), but if the formulaic but fun action and heart on display appeals, you, like the Genesect, may finally have found a home.-6.5/10

It's not a bad movie in any way, it's a good kid movie and there are plenty of pokemon to entertain young kids and pokemon battles between Genesect and various other pokemon. But if you're like me and you've been playing pokemon since the 90's this film is not going to be as good as for example Mewtwo returns or the movie 2000. Mewtwo and Ash act as if they've met each other for the first time ever, team rocket get barely any screen time and the only one of ash's pokemon that get any action is Picachu. This movie is primarily aimed at younger audiences like 3-8 because those of us who are 16 and above have been forgotten about by the pokemon company. But like I said, your kids or younger siblings will love it.