User Reviews

After a spectacular high with the previous movie, "Lucario and the Mystery of Mew," can the Pokémon crew pull off another one? Sadly, the newest effort, "Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea," falls far short of the high marks set by its predecessor as well as the sixth movie, "Jirachi Wish Maker"---a relationship I will elaborate on further in a moment.

During the introduction to the story, we see a luminous egg float through the sea before being seized by a technologically-advanced pirate captain, Phantom. We are then introduced to the Pokémon Ranger of the title, Jack "Jackie" Walker, who has disguised himself as a member of Phantom's crew. Jackie seizes the egg from Phantom and escapes from the pirate captain's submersible headquarters.

Meanwhile, the main cast of heroes are wandering through a desert wasteland, and when they run out of water, conveniently run into a traveling troupe of "water show" performers. At a local performance, the egg makes a reappearance, being tended to by an oddly familiar clown soon revealed to be Jackie, the Ranger. It is revealed that the egg contains a legendary Pokémon called Manaphy, and Jackie's mission is to safely hatch it and deliver it to a place called Samaya, the Sea Temple built by the ancestors of the performing troupe. He does not wish to allow Ash's group to be involved, but an attack by Phantom during their trip gets them into it irreversibly---especially after Manaphy hatches in May's arms and promptly begins to think she is its mother! Much of the immediate plot following this details the development of a bond between May and Manaphy, and the establishment that Phantom's goal is to capture the great treasure hidden inside Samaya, the Sea Crown. The plot drags for quite some time before we finally arrive at Samaya, where Phantom suddenly reappears and finds the Sea Crown---a pedestal filled with crystals. As he begins to remove them, the temple begins to sink, however Jackie manages to replace all but one before the flooding carries him, Phantom and the last crystal away.

All the characters except Ash and May escape the temple before it totally sinks. They go back in with Manaphy and find the last crystal, but before they can replace it, Ash is forced to seal May, Pikachu and Manaphy inside a capsule Phantom left behind while he braves the nearly-flooded temple to replace the last crystal. He drowns in the Sea Crown chamber, but Manaphy's special powers allow May's prayer for his safety to revive him and give him the strength to place the crystal in the pedestal. When he does so, a green light appears and a tentacle of this light carries May's capsule to safety.

With the Crown repaired, all the water drains out of Samaya and the temple surfaces---however, May believes Ash died, and Phantom suddenly makes a last-ditch effort to capture Manaphy, since it can lead him back to Samaya at any time. The secret of the light is revealed---inside the tentacle is none other than Ash, granted superpowers by completing the Sea Crown. He outmaneuvers Phantom and rescues Manaphy, only for Phantom to attack with his submarine and its sonic blast weapons. A special song Manaphy sings protects all the wild water Pokémon from Phantom's attack, and then it uses them to destroy Phantom's sub. He is finally defeated by the legendary Kyogre and captured by the police as May bids farewell to Manaphy (which leaves her by speaking, in English, "Love you, mama! Love you....May") and Jackie radios his base with the news of his mission's success.

During the credits, we see Phantom and his crew in prison, Jackie speaking to an Officer Jenny, and Jackie capturing a Zapdos with his Capture Styler (a tool used by Pokémon Rangers) So, what is good about this movie? Unfortunately, not much. It is terribly unoriginal for one, sharing many plot details with "Jirachi Wish Maker." Phantom is an amusing villain who engages in a bit of slapstick comedy, but he has absolutely no backstory. Also, the token Ash death with him drowning in the temple feels rather tired this time around. Drowning is a common "death" that has been used many times in the TV series and movies.

On the plus side, Manaphy is adorable, and May waited a long time to get spotlighted (while Max, a more minor character, was highlighted three years earlier in the sixth movie) Overall, though, this one's disappointing. Movie 10, "Dialga vs. Palkia vs. Darkrai," looks to be much better than this. We shall see early next year if that holds true.

Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea (2006) certainly has improved in various areas compared to the previous ones. Throwing a personal Pokémon Movie Marathon does makes it easier to tell the differences between Pokémon films and while it is arguably the worst of worst Pokémon films, I beg to differ; it is not the worst there is although I would agree that it isn't a flawless animated feature!

Why? First of all, Pokémon stories usually set on the land or the sky if not alternate dimension. This one is under the sea! There are a lot of endearing water Pokémon which is amazing to watch and there is a brief spectacular Underwater Pokémon Show by Marina Group too! Then, this one has improved introduction which makes it less difficult keep up with the ever growing Pokémon franchise. The creators of these films are more careful now, they did not specify the total number of Pokémon any more.

What's more interesting are the new characters introduced, namely the Pokémon Ranger who utilises Capture Stylers instead of Pokéballs to command Pokémon and the story of the People of the Water, the descendants of an ancient water-based civilisation. Manaphy, the featured legendary Pokémon, who is related, is interesting and adorable too. It is quite heartwarming to watch it hatch from egg, bond with May and to be independent in such a short time. Although it is kind of sad that Kyogre and the Temple of the Sea are not much highlighted here, seriously, how can these not make it great adventure family film?

Okay, this is just a shorter version of my review so in short, the ending of Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea (2006) is indeed unfortunately ridiculous but it is certainly not the worst because it actually has one of the best backstory, maybe just poorly executed. Honestly, it is actually a pretty sweet, familial film!

What the heck did I just watch? Ugh. This is one of the worst Kids movies I've ever seen in my entire life.

And I'm dead serious man, it's worse than Misty's Togepi, It's worse than Wilhelmina's Marill, It's even worse than Ash's Lavitar. And I'm not making this up.

I FEEL DEFEATED, I FEEL DISGUSTED,and I feel betrayed. How can they make a movie on The most annoying Misty and Togepi ripoff could be a good idea, huh?

Well, at least Manaphy gets to go home in Samiya in the end.

I figure that How did Manaphy got popular in Japan again? Because it's called "The Prince of the Sea"? Well Manaphy wasn't actually a Prince, or is he? He doesn't care about anyone. He cared about May, he wants to make money off of this movie, so he could make more fans, more views, and millions and millions of subscribers, so he could be one top of The Internet's community. And it makes me feel god dang.. ugh.. *imitates explosion* You know as bad as the movie is, it could have been worse. I MEAN, COULD YOU IMAGINE MANAPHY REALLY DID GOTTA POPULAR IN JAPAN?

The Pokemon movies stopped appearing in American cinemas with the sixth feature (now released direct-to-DVD), but are among the top grossing movies in Japan to this day, where the tenth is currently set to release in the land of the rising sun this summer. This is the ninth, and the first to be dubbed by the new voice cast that took over for the ninth season, Battle Frontier. The previous two Pokemon films were just about perfect—fun and enjoyable fantasy plots, wonderful and creative animation, excellent voice acting, sprinkles of great humor, a little bit of drama, great music, and totally enjoyable endings. The ninth feature has all of that for certain. The new cast, led by Sarah Natchonneny, does a great job in this feature. May gets a spotlight in this one as well, to great effect, as she has always been one of my favorite Advanced Generation (6th to 9th seasons) characters. Team Rocket has one of the best lines in the movie in a wonderful fourth-wall breaking moment, and Ash has some really cool heroic moments towards the end. The ending song isn't quite as good as the one in 7 or 8, but is still pretty good. Sometimes you just want a movie where the good guys are good guys; the bad guys are bad, and watching it is just fun. This movie, like its predecessors, left me feeling content and satisfied, something that many movies focused on avoiding the happy ending just can't do.

"Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea", the 9th movie for the Pokemon franchise, is a rather fun ride. As the movie series progresses, they keep using more and more computer animation, which gets better looking each year. And part nine doesn't disappoint, with gorgeous locales, cool looking vehicles, and even displays of Pokemon powers being displayed in well done CGI.

It doesn't hurt that this is one of the more epic stories the movies have seen: a pirate is after a legendary Pokemon called Manaphy in order to use it to find an undersea temple and the treasure in it. But the egg Manaphy's in is stolen by a "Pokemon Ranger" named Jack Walker. Jack ends up joining forces with Ash and Co., as well as a performance troupe descended from the People of the Water who made that temple, and they go on a journey to return Manaphy to where it comes from while eluding the pirate and his crew.

Like the other Pokemon movies, this one has its moments. There's a scene involving large floating balls of water and those performers that would put would put Cirque de Soliel to shame. There's a chase scene with helicopters chasing our heroes as they ride in a vehicle that looks like a big boat on wheels. And from the moment they arrive at the temple on end, it's one wild ride.

Unfortunately, this entry suffers from the same problems as its predecessors. The voice acting from the new voice cast is a little better than the 4Kids crew, but it's still doesn't make you feel for the characters and their situations like you're supposed to. There's also the problem of Team Rocket; most of the time, they follow our heroes around and talk about what they're going to do while making bad puns, but don't really have a role in the story. The good news is that they're a little more involved this time around, but the bad news is they're still annoying. And once again there's a use of DEUS EX MACHINA towards the end (I won't say what. And the resulting scene is so fun a lot of viewers might not mind)

Overall, definitely one the best Pokemon movies. Bring on part 10!

I could only watch half of the movie before I couldn't take it anymore and tuned out.

Here's all the cons:

• Horrible pacing. The point of the movie isn't explained until 1/3rd of the way in. Until then, the characters are just running around with no point. Exposition is thrown around in random places, making it confusing why we didn't hear certain things earlier, when they would've been more important/impactful.

• Garbage story. There's action scenes, and there's dramatic scenes, but they're all just thrown together into this strange mush of a story that has zero purpose and just makes me more confused by the second. And the apparent premise of the movie doesn't make sense either!!! Why the hell does having some random dream suddenly make May so iNsPiReD that she wants to be Manaphy's mom???? Whu-HUH?!?!?!?!?

• Awful characters. The villain means nothing to me, he is completely shallow and has to reinforce his nonexistent "villainous terror" with superfluous villainous-sounding dialogue. The other characters have just as little depth. At least they found an interesting way to include Team Rocket, though it doesn't make up for the fact that they have no need to be there.

• Too much 3D animation. It is EXCESSIVE, and it doesn't even look that good. They do obnoxious things like swapping between hand-drawn Manaphy and 3D Manaphy, and it is SO obvious that it ruins what little effect it had.

This has to be among the most stupid, mindless movies I've ever seen. Please don't watch Pokémon movies, guys....

I really like this movie, when this movie first showed on TV in 2007 it was a little unexpected but fun. When I recorded this movie on my DVR the recording was messed up and it stopped recording halfway into it, so I had to go to best buy and buy this movie with my own money, but it was worth it, Plus the movie came with a Pokemon short and a Pikachu 10th anniversary video with 3 classic Pokemon episodes. I bought this movie when I was 10, I am now 13 and I still enjoy this movie. So buy if for your kids, watch it on TV if it is on, by all mean this is a good movie.

Pros The first thing in noticed in this movie was that the graphics were a little better than the other movies, with the shadow effects and more detailed background. The storyline was pretty epic, it kept me to the end without a stopping. The voice acting was some of the best voice acting I have ever seen, and the character and scenery design was also good. And this movie was not all cheerful, I almost cried when May had to part was with Manaphy, but that is another sign of good acting in a movie.

Cons There were some 3D animated scenes that could have been better than they were, but they were not bad. The water effects were kinda crappy, mainly because it looked like they didn't put much work into that. Sadly this is the last movie for a while that will feature May and Max as main characters. But all these are such a small interference with the movie you might not even notice it.

I really like this series, and have started collecting DVDs and VHS tapes of the series, and I decided to watch this a bit after getting it.

I like the music in the film, and the artwork including the CGI bits look great, and even though it takes about 30 minutes or so to reveal the main focus of the film, Manaphy, I feel like the amount of time taken was acceptable, as it built up suspense for me, and even though the main plot was basic, involving the Pokemon Rangers having to protect the Pokemon and prevent a pirate guy I forgot the name of from stealing the Manaphy Egg, and a thing about the sea temple, but ultimately, I didn't find it that bad, and I think one of the best things involving this movie, is the chemistry between May and Manaphy, seeming a lot like a mother daughter relationship, and I love how Manaphy is similar to an actual infant, since he had just hatched from an egg not long ago around the 32 minute mark, and even though the movie was around 1hr 45min, I felt it was a bit short, compared to other movies I have, I don't think this overstayed its welcome too much, and even though I am glad the entire movie wasn't focused on May and Manaphy, I wish that they were focused on a bit more throughout the movie, but I wouldn't want the movie to focus on 3 or more different plotlines that try to fight with each other, so its ok with me.

I find this movie a great casual watch in general, personally I would watch this again, but in PSVR, since I watched this first on the TV, the movie is just that great that I would want to watch again.