Hoopa and the Clash of Ages is the whooping 18th movie in the Pokemon series. Sometimes it seems as if these'll keep coming out forever. And if they do, I guess one day I'll be forced to retire from death and descent to the mortal plane and walk the waking world eternally; just to review these things. When you crank out sequels yearly, care and originality become a problem. Pokemon settled into a routine. Once every few years the team will push out something a bit better or if we're lucky, genuinely enjoyable. Sure, we didn't have a legit, consistently good movie since The Riseof Darkrai, some eight movies ago and we didn't have an unironically great movie since Pokemon Heroes some 13 years ago. However, this doesn't mean some movies, such as Zoroark: Master of Illusions weren't enjoyable. What's that? The Zoroark movie came out 5 installments ago? Huh, well, I guess the very last one about Diancine wasn't that bad. The more I look back at the past movies, it seems as if quality really is slipping down with smaller and smaller spikes in quality. I'm happy to say that this movie's not offensive. But I'm also disappointed to call it a less exciting derivative of the Diancine movie. Fitting the same mold, we've got Ash meeting a cosmically irrelevant legendary pokemon. Then some sweet shenanigans ensue and before writers are forced to make the movie into a character study, all hell breaks loose. By no means am I'm petitioning for Pokemon to shift gears into deeply personal stories for art majors by art majors, but you can't keep doing the same thing and always get away with it. I keep getting side tracked. Let me try again. Music is absolutely forgettable and visuals are merely fine. Team Rocket are used especially badly to the point it becomes infuriating. Unfortunately, after being beat with them for the last twenty years in the show, like a battered housewife returning for more, I can't muster much the energy to protest. This movie can be divided into two parts, the starting shenanigans and the "epic" plot. Former being standard pokemon movie fare to the point I don't even need to describe it and in fact, I won't. Just know that it's run-of-the-mill. It's the latter that drags this movie down. who exactly is the culprit? The exact thing that hangs on every bit of advertising - the insane numbers of already seen legendaries. While it is an attempt at nostalgia, none of them actually recognize Ash since these movies avoid continuity like Ash avoids growing up in the show. For this reason, character wise, the whole thing is wasted. While it's nice for Ash x Latias shippers (read: reason why people don't like Pokemon fans) to see him flying with the Eon duo, it all amounts to nothing more than cheap effects. The number of legendaries they had to animate flying spread their budget thin. Everyone's just floating in the same way no matter their anatomy. Besides a two second money shot where a building gets sliced like bread, the drawn out battle looks unimpressive and is generally boring. This, coupled with a faux ending is dull and firmly puts this outing into the "at least it's not too obnoxious" camp. I could ramp this up to the level insane nitpicking, but there's no reason to bother. It's just another disapointing Pokemon movie for the pile. However, I will point something that really irritated me - the inconsistent way movie handled the population of the city. As they didn't want to bother animating people until the very finale, during the battle the city is generally empty with a few jarring cutavawy reaction shots of people turning towards the action. This was shameful, just as lazy as in the pony movie two years ago. What's worse, with no reactions from people towards legendaries and without interactions between humans and legendaries, this movie creates a disconnect between what's happening and what the stakes are supposed to be. While the climax after the faux-ending rectifies that a bit, it's not enough. To wrap up. This generally inoffensive, but formulaic movie is dragged down by the virtue of being very similar to the superior outing that was the very movie preceding it: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction. I would advise the viewer to watch that movie instead of this one. Or if one's looking for a subpar, but somewhat worthwhile Pokemon movie, then check Destiny Deoxis instead.

{{{There are spoilers if you are wondering}}} Hahaha, now this was another childhood favorite of mine. It was so bad that it was good... I haven't watched this in years, but I remember how right off the bat ash (or satoshi, i wasn't reading subtitles at the time) and his friends were chilling in a pool, in a desert, literally in the middle of nowhere. I'm not exaggerating, they were the only ones. All of a sudden they and the water are teleported to hoopa and the person incharge of him (is he a girl? idk). because they (the person) asked for a cup of water.1. they live in this whole ass city and hoopa decided to get water from a desert????? 2. the water is chlorinated Now ash and his friends are part of the storyline,,.. wooh, yay, mc's are now im the story... Hoopa shows his powers, makes a bunch of pikachus show up blah, blah, blah and then he turns into a big boi!!! This is where things are a little blurry in my mind. Baby hoopa turns into a big hoopa, and then there are two hoopas??? I'm not sure how they split exactly, but i'm pretty sure big boi hoopas goal is to capture baby hoopa in order so he can stay alive,,,,??? They gotta fight the big hoopa, a bunch of other legendary pokemon come to help (rayquaza, lugia, latios, latios and a couple more) Lots of ring/hoops involved. They are used to teleport. And damn, big hoopa is a - s t a l k e r- Big hoopa is scary. lol In the end they save the world, the end. One thing i remember is that I felt as if their lives were in danger. Usually when watching pokemon you're like, "oh yeah, we know there is going to be cliche problems, but in the end everything will be alright." However, when I was watching this I actually feared for ash and baby hoopa's lives. Oh, and also. Wasn't one of hoopa's owner (trainers??) the one that went to some cave and made him turn into the big boy. Dumbass. Solid 8/10, purely out of memory. Rewatched-3 times

I did not care for this one. The only thing saving this movie from being scored even lower is the beautiful visuals, (well, some of the CG was a little iffy, but I have soft spot for this Pokémon season's animation in general) so I'll try to keep this brief. I wasn't really a fan of the way we're just thrown into the plot... the way Hoopa literally grabs our heroes out of their daily lives and plops them down into this plotline. It felt intrusive, and I wish they'd found a better way to tie this movie's story into something the gang was already workingtowards. And Hoopa was obnoxious in both forms. That's kind of a tough handicap to overcome, given how much of the movie revolves around and is driven by him. But mostly, the very idea just felt distinctly... cash-grabby. I can practically see the dollar signs (yen symbols?) that must have been in the creators' eyes when the idea of a movie that would bring together legendary Pokémon from across a whole bunch of seasons was first proposed. It's kind of funny, because I just watched Bonds Beyond Time-- the Yu-Gi-Oh movie that brings the first three main protagonists together-- and they're kind of based on that same sentiment... But it didn't bother me so much there, where each of the characters actually had their own place in the story. Here, the legendaries are popping up just to be notable cameos. I'm glad I can check this one off my list, but it just... wasn't for me.

I'll admit, it's been a long time since I've watched any recent Pokemon movies, but Hoopa and the Clash of Ages is definitely the worst out of all the ones I've seen. There really isn't any story in this movie. Hoopa has an evil side that has to be sealed away, and then a bunch of legendaries are summoned for a battle. Seriously. That's the plot. I've just saved you an hour and fifteen minutes. The bare-bones plot doesn't hide the fact that this movie is basically advertising the games, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire specifically. All the legendary Pokemon that are summoned are ones youcan obtain in the game, the special contest Pikachus cameo for no real reason, and the special new forms of all the Hoenn legendaries get shown in their sparkly glory. This is literally a big commercial. The movie also goes on for far longer than it needs to. I kept checking the timebar begging for the movie to be over during the last 30 minutes. The characters are bland. Hoopa is one of the most irritating talking Pokemon the movies have produced, with bad catchphrases that will no doubt get on your nerves by the end of the movie. Baraz and Meray only exist to give exposition, their characters don't exist outside of being Hoopa's friends and it shows. Ash and friends, and Team Rocket, also have little to do with anything going on. They're literally pulled into the plot and only Ash gets to really do anything. But the story could easily exist without them. Considering how interesting the Pokemon movie characters can be, this is a huge disappointment. If you're here solely for the fight scenes, I suppose you'll be satisfied. But it's the only selling point the movie has, and they don't kick in until about half-way through the movie. So you'll have to sit through it begging for a sweet release. Overall, Hoopa and the Clash of Ages is too long, too bare-bones, and too boring. I wouldn't even recommend it for kids, as they'll get much more excitement over any other Pokemon movie. Skip this movie unless you want to be let down.