I'm not a huge fan of Pokemon, but I am a casual watcher of the television program. This is alot better than the first one, and succeeds where the first one fails. This one makes me happy. The animation as always is spectacular and sleek, with mixing, computer animation, painting animation, and regular animation. We get to see this demonstrated in the pre-movie cartoon, "Pikachu's Rescue". In the scene where the clouds begin to form, we see the trees which are painted, brushing with the wind. Pretty good, and it sets the moods just right. Another high point was that, this movie is alot lighter in its mood than the first one. The first one tends to take itself way too seriously, which dragged the movie down. This one didn't. It set the perfect moods with seriousness, drama, and comedy. The characters are spectacular and provide great animated eye candy. The battle in the end with Zapdos, Moltres, and Lugia, is an excellent with it's composition and animation. The mini-movie before The actual movie is dull and forgettable. Pikachu and the other pokemon must save baby pokemon Togepi after he falls down a tunnel into a mysterious pokeworld. This is an animated movie to be helmed by all five year olds. Kids will foam at the mouths to see this flick.

The movie and actual story tends to drag quite a bit in the beginning and at times is very confusing. I didn't get much of the story and its purpose. Maybe I'm dumb, or the story is complicated. In the movie they never actually fully explain the reason why the three elemental pokemon would battle to the death, what they do is, they keep on telling us the legend repeatedly, expecting us to figure it out. Give us an explanation. Alot of the movie is used as a subtle marketing gimmick. In the home video and theatre showing, they give out a pokecard of the character Mew. In the movie the collector has the same card and hints at audiences to come see the movie again for the card. Whatever.

This is a fun, magical, and appealing movie that kids will love.