Hoopa Leaves Me Furious

A Pokemon that talks the entire time, opens portals, and mostly wins by summoning other Pokemon to do the fighting? That single idea sets the tone for a review that turns into a full-on vent session. We’re continuing our Pokemon movie journey with Pokemon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, and we do not sugarcoat the reaction: the concept feels weird, the execution feels messy, and the result leaves us more irritated than entertained. 

We walk through what Hoopa is, why the “genie in a bottle” setup never pays off, and how the action starts to feel like a string of moments instead of a story with a clear point. We also dig into a bigger franchise question that matters to longtime fans: when a Pokemon movie leans on nonstop dialogue from a Pokemon character and piles on random powers, does it lose the simple charm that made the originals fun? We compare that feeling to the clean, readable appeal of classic starters and why that contrast makes the newer choices land even worse. 

By the end, we give Hoopa and the Clash of Ages a brutal 1.5 out of 6 and explain exactly why we score it that low. We also tease what’s coming next with Pokemon Zoroark: Master of Illusions and the upcoming July Cinema Sunday lineup. If you’ve ever rage-watched a franchise you love, hit play, then subscribe, share the show with a fellow Pokemon fan, and leave a review with your hottest Pokemon movie take.

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Transcript

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Welcome And Movie Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a brand new episode of The Couch Critics. I'm your host, Nathan, and on today's episode, continuing on my Pokemon journey, talking about Pokemon, the movie Hoopa, and the Clash of Ages. So last week I said that this is another movie that's introducing me to a brand new Pokemon that I'd never heard of before. And out of all the Pokemon powers, this one was the most, I guess, interesting, but at the same time kind of useless. Because let me just start by saying this Pokemon does exactly what I have said before that I do not like when my Pokemon do this, and that is talk. But the difference between this one and the other previous ones is that this one is not using telekinesis, it can actually talk with its mouth, and it's kind of annoying because it does it the entire

Meet Hoopa And The Portals

SPEAKER_00 1:19

movie. So it starts off with this ginormous version of this character. And I guess his whole name is Hoopa Baguopa or something. It's a really weird name. And what this Pokemon can do is create these portals in which they summon other types of Pokemon. So it's not necessarily that Hoopa himself is doing the attacking, it's summoning other Pokemon to do the attacking for him. So that's why I feel like this Pokemon doesn't really need to exist because it doesn't do anything itself, it relies on the powers of other Pokemon.

Why The Plot Feels Pointless

SPEAKER_00 1:52

But anyway, so this movie is just weird. It's a weird movie. It starts off with this evil version of this massive character and it's summoned back into a magic bottle because I guess it's like a genie Pokemon or something, even though no one ever ever makes wishes with this Pokemon. And then, of course, Ask Hedgeman friends come in and join the chaos and find this smaller version of this Pokemon. You can tell by the way I'm explaining it, this movie is very confusing, and it felt like it didn't need to exist because the plot, let's just say there was not much of a plot, because the whole purpose was to get this giant Pokemon back into its bottle. And again, like I said last episode, these seem like just very long episodes that don't need to exist, and it does not feel like a movie. It feels like you're watching a Pokemon episode, and when they finally do something that they're supposed to do, something else happens to continue the story going on. And that's exactly again what this movie did. Like they they helped the evil hoopa not to be evil anymore, and then for some reason the world was crumbling. I don't I don't even know. I don't even know because this movie was just was just weird and dumb

Why These Newer Pokemon Annoy Me

SPEAKER_00 3:03

and pointless. And I hate it. I hate that all these movies feel like this to me because I'm I'm dedicating all of season six basically to these Pokemon movies. And so far, I haven't watched one that I've liked. I mean, there was maybe one that was slightly intriguing, which was the Genesect one because it had Mewtwo in it, but even Mewtwo wasn't that intimidating in it. So all these movies are just making me very frustrated and very angry. And this movie is no different. And again, this is why I like talking to other people as opposed to just recording by myself, because then these episodes are super short because I have nothing else to say about them. There's nothing really there's nothing really good about this movie that I enjoyed at all. And I it's unfortunate because I grew up with Pokemon, and I think that's why. I think that's why I don't like these movies, because they're introducing Pokemon that that their powers make no sense to me. And some people might say, Well, you know, Nathan, the original Pokemon, a lot of them have powers and make any sense, but they were fun. These these Pokemon are not fun to me, they're not fun characters, they're just random and annoying because number one, they talk, they use actual words, and number two, their powers are dumb and random. Like, at least with the original ones, you have Charmander, who's a fire, you had Bulbasaur who had like plant powers. Squirtle was my favorite because he was just a water Pokemon. And then he, of course, Pikachu, which Pikachu wasn't even one of the original ones. Yeah, this movie just made me mad, and that's all I really can say is that this movie made me mad.

Final Rating And Frustration

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So I'm gonna give Pokemon the movie Hoopa and the Clash of Ages a 1.5 out of six. I'm being very brutal with these movies because I'm watching them as a Pokemon fan, and I'm being very disappointed in what I'm watching. So I'm hoping, maybe, that this movie, this movie is interesting. This next one coming up. Pokemon Zoriark, Master of Illusions. We'll see what that one's about. I'm assuming this is another new generation Pokemon, but Master of Illusions makes it sound somewhat

Teasing The Next Pokemon Movie

SPEAKER_00 4:49

interesting. But we shall see because we're getting closer to our July Cinema Sunday episode, which will be jam-packed with three movies, which I will not name right now, because you're just gonna have to listen to future episodes of The Couch Critics.

Cinema Sunday Hype And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Where every movie gets its close-up.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Where are the couch critics rolling?