This is easily the worst Pokemon movie to date. I pity everyone who took part in the creation and viewing of this movie, minus the writers because I am personally offended at how they wasted an hour and twenty minutes of my time that I will never get back.The movie breaks every canon they had set up in Pokemon prior to this. It's like they decided to write a movie without watching any of the previous movies or playing the games or knowing what Pokemon were aside from general design for animation purposes. First of all, Hoopa is the most grotesquely annoying character from literally any series I've ever seen. They scream every single line they have except when on the brink of death. The voice eventually felt like someone was putting my ear drums against a cheese grater. Second of all, they added in every legendary Pokemon they could cram into a scene just for a "clash of the titans" type action scene to try to compensate for the movie not really having a coherent story. Or even a story really. It was just legendary Pokemon fan-service and it flopped horribly. Third, it takes place in a fictional version of Dubai named after some variation of the word "Sahara" since Hoopa is based on a Djinn. The city was barren. There was no one there aside from like two scenes where you'd see maybe five other people aside from the main characters. Plus, every single character in this movie was white. In fictional Dubai. At the beginning of the movie the supporting characters and background characters were wearing (though stereotypical and outdated) middle eastern attire, but by the end you'd swear you were looking at a hipster poetry night at a coffee shop in Portland with how white everyone was. I was left with far more questions than answers with this movie. Literally none were remotely close to answered. I get this is a kids movie but kids movies and animation in general has stepped up in the past decade. Pokemon apparently didn't get the memo because this views worse than almost any B movie.

Right, Hoopa & The Clash Of Ages, 18th film in the Pokémon series, grab me a pack of Wotsits and let's a go.One thing I'm gonna get straight outta the way is, it is sort of (and I mean sort of since this film is also plagued with problems) better than the Diancie film which in my silly little humble opinion felt like an overlong episode of the show... and a boring one too. Here it doesn't feel like that, it has a bit of an epic feel to it, there are at least some stakes here and not endless padding.So the plot is Ash and pals (if you're living under a rock that's the XY companions who are Serena, Bonnie and Clemont) have gone to Dahara City and in no time at all they soon meet a Pokémon named Hoopa who has a fetish for donuts and loves surprising people. Taking care of this chum is Barza and Meray. Fortunately for everyone, Team Rocket (being the clumsy fools they are) accidentally release the giant form of Hoopa and it soon becomes a frantic race against time to get the giant form back into the bottle.Now I must admit, this story has some good potential, Pokémon has never done anything like this before so surely they must have had some good ideas up their sleeves right? Well the actual execution to me seems rather disappointing to be honest with ya.Because the film was released with a Pikachu short, the film only has at least 76 minutes to try and get a plot as big as this into one roof, and while some stuff do work, others don't. This my friend, was certainly the case where I thought a longer running-time could have helped make the story flow better.Surprisingly enough, tons of Legendary Pokémon make appearances thanks to Hoopa so if you are a Pokémon aficionado I hope you've got your notebooks at the ready.Lugia, Latios, Latias, Rayquaza, Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, and Kyurem all appear... unfortunately for some (especially Dialga, Palkia, Groudon and Kyogre) they aren't really given that much to do. Still nice to see Latios and Latias again.One of the highlights of the film was of course the battle against the legendaries, this scene made some pretty decent use of animation and CG all fluidly done. It was great fun to watch.Another disappointing part and *SPOILER IF YOU AIN'T SEEN IT* is where Ash turns evil for a bit. Honestly the trailer made it look like he was about to do something quite bad yet the film reduces it to just 2 minutes of it. Quite wasted potential if you ask me.So what's the dub like? Well for the most part the acting is quite good (and no I ain't throwing any complaints at the TPC actors, it's been done far enough, so there, nah nah ne nah nah), Sarah Natochenny's good as Ash, Haven Paschell's great as Serena, Michael Liscio Jr makes a fine Clemont and Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld really stands out as Bonnie.Guest stars do good too (except for one though), Daniel J Edwards did a decent job as Baraz and Emily Woo Zeller was also good as Meray.However I can not and I repeat I CAN NOT say the same for Hoopa who's English voice is absolutely grating. This shrill and nasally excuse for a voice almost nearly took my enjoyment out of the film and I honestly wanted to blow Hoopa's brains out because I couldn't stand it.Also the English music is quite frankly awful, completely ruining any excitement out of most of the scenes and replacing it with a big pile of nothing.So there we have it my pals, Hoopa & The Clash Of Ages. In short, it's better than Diancie though it's still rather disappointing in it's execution. Hoopa's English voice is crap and it could have been longer but it's still okay for what it is. Just not something I would go outta my way to see again.As for Volcanion though... hmmmm. Get me a ticket, cause we're off to whatever that steam place is ma pals. It's gonna be a bumpy ride, trust me!

The latest Pokémon movie is simply a big mess, and is in my opinion, the worst one yet. It has too many new concepts that just don't work and it's just overstuffed with too many legendary Pokémon.Hoopa gives Shaymin a run for his money as the most annoying Pokémon ever. He never shuts up and I absolutely cringed every time he said "Were you surprised?". The "alternate" Hoopa is equally annoying.There were far too many legendary Pokémon, and the "big battle" at the end is very all-over-the-place and mainly felt like an extended advertisement for the games. You could have sworn that it was directed by Michael Bay.A lot of Pokémon movies have their share of stupid scenes, but this one has some of the worst. It includes the people somehow being entertained by the legendary Pokémon instead of being afraid, the guy at the stand telling the giant Hoopa to pay for the food it ate, the gang wanting to go to a big city just to have some doughnuts, the many teleport scenes with Hoopa, and several more.The script is pretty weak, and the Arceus-ex-machina at the end was really poorly done.The whole thing just feels overstuffed and recklessly thrown together. This is perhaps the worst Pokémon film of them all, just barely beating out "Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice". Like that film, only the most die-hard Pokémon fans should bother with this one, but everyone else should skip it.RATING: D

**WARNING: This is a review of the English dubbed version of the Hoopa Film that aired on CN and Teletoon**Basically, "Hoopa and the Clash of Ages," is a film that focuses more on random legendary creatures appearing, than any of the main characters' development or goals, relies on conventions previous films handled far better, and overall leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. It's disorganized, rushed, and focuses more on Ash than anyone else by far, as well as legendary Pokemon Hoopa. This film is so awful that there is literally no purpose for having Serena, Clemont, Bonnie, or Team Rocket in it, in fact, they show no personality in this film, and ultimately they were useless- you could take them out of the film, and it would be the same. It also does a cheap cop out towards the end of the film where Hoopa Unbound, who is apparently the antagonist here, takes over Ash and he becomes evil for all of like 30 seconds. One, this evil Ash concept is a copy of an episode of the Anime, Battle Frontier's, "Battling the Enemy Within," that was done better there, and two, Ash's TPCI actress sounded like a straight woman in the whole scene, with disjointed delivery particularly notable when Ash says, "It is over," so the cheapness of the Hoopa Film and its dub are made even more glaring.What makes the film even worse, is its awful English dubbing by The Pokemon Company International (TPCI), though: Ash now sounds like a woman who has a sore throat doing her deepest voice, as opposed to a boy, James now sounds like an old man with a cold, Meowth now sounds like a gristly, raspy gangster, Jessie now sounds like a valley girl, Serena sounds like a woman rather than a girl, Clemont sounds like a man instead of a boy, and to round off Bonnie's actress has a very stilted delivery. Overall, the voice acting in the English dub is horrendous.Almost all the beautiful Japanese OST composed by Shinji Miyazaki, is wiped clean out of existence save 1.5 tracks, something I should add 4Kids, who once had the license for Pokemon, did not do later in their run. However, TPCI is now, and started doing with the previous Diancie film. The Japanese OST is mainly replaced with Ed Goldfarb's poor music composition that never shuts up to allow silence, and fails to shift in tone whatsoever, like one "marshmallow" track.The villains, Team Rocket (Jessie, James, and Meowth) are also given awful rhyming dialogue like, "Slick, that should do the trick," for what little screen time they receive, annoying one more than anything else.Cartoon Network then cut out whole scenes from the TV broadcasts, as did TPCI, of this film, making it even worse and more disjointed.Overall, awful, would not recommend to anyone.