Get ready to feel electrified by "Pokemon Detective Pikachu."
The highly anticipated movie introduces beloved Pokemon characters in a way audiences have never seen before: as computer-generated creatures in a live-action setting.
Depicting a world where life-like Pokemon with scales and fur walk among humans was a complicated task for the movie's stars, who had to pretend they were interacting with characters who weren't really there. Justice Smith, who plays Tim Goodman, recalls a particularly tough scene involving his character, Pikachu and Mr. Mime.
"Because Mr. Mime and Pikachu don't actually exist, I'm having to track where they are in the room at both times and make sure that when I'm looking at Mr. Mime, I know in the back of my head that Pikachu is walking across the room," Smith tells the Daily News. "So when I turn back to Pikachu, he's not going to be in the same spot that I saw him in before.
"Doing all that and then also acting on top of that, that was challenging," he said. "But it was fun. It's just fun. It's like playing pretend."
Smith, 23, had experience shooting scenes with imaginary characters, having starred in last year's "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom." But that movie generally required him to just "run away screaming," he explains. "Pokemon Detective Pikachu" _ based on a video game that came out worldwide in 2018 _ had him engaging with Pikachu and others, requiring him to look at a tennis ball, puppet or sometimes nothing at all.
Pikachu is portrayed by Ryan Reynolds, who voiced the character and wore a facial capture rig to convey the lovable electric rodent's emotions as he delivered lines.
The movie, which hits theaters Friday, centers on Pikachu's detective partner Harry Goodman _ Tim's father _ going missing, causing Tim and the yellow Pokemon to team up to solve the mystery. Tim is the only human who can understand Pikachu, and director Rob Letterman says Reynolds really made the quick-witted character his own.
"We needed to get a big personality for this little adorable character," Letterman told The News. "That contrast was a lot of fun. And then, someone who can be incredibly funny but also have a dramatic, grounded performance. ... Not everyone can pull that off.
"We were already kind of zeroing in on Ryan, but we did this test," he said. "We took a clip from 'The Change Up,' one of his movies from way back. Just randomly took a clip, and the animation team animated Pikachu to that clip just as a test. We didn't approach Ryan at that point. Once I saw that, it was perfect."
Reynolds was only on set for part of production, and the cast and crew went through a series of rehearsals before they began shooting.
"The daunting goal was we should shoot this as if Pokemon exist, and everything is kind of loose and organic and gritty and imperfect and all that," Letterman said. "We did a lot rehearsals, got all those rehearsals together, then I reworked the script to sort of fit what was happening."
Kathryn Newton, who plays Lucy Stevens, a young journalist eager to break news about the mystery, says the movie's set felt like "magic" every day.
"Viewers can expect their Pokemon dreams to come true," Newton, 22, told The News at the movie's New York City premiere. "If you're a fan, or you're not, I think you're going to love the film. But if you're a fan like me, it's what it's like if you lived in a world where you co-existed with Pokemon, and that's my favorite part. It's a new universe that you get to explore."
Nostalgia plays a key role in the film, as Letterman, 48, made it a point to include numerous first-generation Pokemon that would appeal to people who grew up with the franchise in the 1990s.
Included in that age demographic is Smith, who collected Pokemon trading cards, watched the anime and played the video games as a kid. His love of Pokemon during his youth is part of the reason he jumped at the chance to join the movie, and he appreciates the way the series continues to resonate with a younger generation.
"It's definitely the magic and the fantasy of it, but it's also the sense of community," Smith said. "When you played the original games on Game Boy Color, you had to link up to another kid's Game Boy in order to transfer a Pokemon. You had to meet other kids to trade cards. It was a social thing. And even 'Pokemon Go,' you can't play it sitting in your house. You have to go outside and play. I think The Pokemon Company, what they do so beautifully, is bring people together. ... I'm bonding with young kids over something that we both have grown up with, which is rare."
