Pokemon Movie 10: Dialga vs. Palkia vs. Darkrai

The beautiful Alamos Town is home to a pair of century-old structures known as the Space-Time Towers, built by the architect Godey to play orchestral music in the area. The towers are also home to the Alamos Town Contest Hall, which is the next destination for Hikari, Satoshi, and Takeshi in their journey through the Sinnoh region. A woman named Alice and her partner Chimchar are happy to guide Satoshi and his friends through the town and its hallmarks.

But the tour is suddenly interrupted when Alice's friend Tonio notices a wave of dimensional disturbances throughout the town—all of which is blamed on an ominous Pokémon named Darkrai. The space-time disturbances continue to intensify as two legendary Pokémon, the Temporal Pokémon Dialga and the Spatial Pokémon Palkia, appear to duel each other, isolating the town and everyone present in it from the world into another dimension!

As he learns that this event was foreseen long ago, Tonio finds that his great-grandfather left behind a way to stop the dueling Pokémon. Will Satoshi and his friends be able to use this last resort to save Alamos Town from vaporizing between the dimensions?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Satoshi Main

Matsumoto, Rica Japanese

Pikachu Main

Ootani, Ikue Japanese

Takeshi Main

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Hikari Main

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Pochama Main

Kozakura, Etsuko Japanese

Darkrai Main

Ishizaka, Kouji Japanese

Palkia Main

Dialga Main

Alice Main

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Baron Alberto Main

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Okuno, Toshiaki Producer

Okamoto, Junya Producer

Mori, Takemoto Producer

Yoshikawa, Chouji Producer

Reviews

Feb 23, 2020

Renee96

Recommended

This is where the dip in quality for pokemon movies begins.

I'm not saying Rise of Darkrai is a bad film, far from it, this movie does a lot of things right. Like not having so many annoying characters, the animation is great, soundtrack is awesome, as well as the story and characters are pretty consistent.

Although I wish Team Rocket wasn't in the film as they served no purpose other than being annoying cut away gags to pad out the film's runtime. They do literally nothing other than being the annoying caricatures they have been since the end of the gen 3 anime.

The basic summary ... of the story is that strange things are happening and people point the finger at Darkrai, the Pokémon who is trying to fix things and protect his home while everyone is trying to attack him. Basically the dark misunderstood loner turned hero thing.

I saw this movie back when it aired on Toonami when I was a kid during the diamond and pearl anime run, (OMG I'M OLD) I recently rewatched my DVD and figured I write my review. All these years later and the movie still holds up.

Nostalgia aside this movie is still pretty good. I do consider it my favorite as it was the debut of my still all time favorite pokemon.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 14, 2019

PokeFan2112

Recommended

A great Pokemon movie- one of the best in the franchise.

The story, with a battle between Dialga and Palkia causing space-time anomalies, culminating with Ash and the gang having to stop the town from being erased, was very cool. I really like when Pokemon goes for the kind of "epic sci-fi" vibe and this definitely delivered. Better yet, unlike some other movies in the franchise which take a long while to get going, this got interesting right away and stayed so till the end.

The fight scenes were very exciting and tense, as is the standard for the series, and there was a lot of funny ... moments, in particular when Baron Alberto turned into a Lickilicky! I especially liked when he called his own attacks :)

And once again, the animation/direction was very well-done. In particular, the final climax scene was absolutely stunning.

Overall, a great one. I'm not sure where it ranks in the grand spectrum of the movies, but it's definitely in the top 5. Would recommend to any fan of the franchise.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 4, 2024

5TAR5TORM

Not Recommended

Spoiler

As much as I like Pokemon movies, I did not like The Rise of Darkrai. Starting with the good, Darkrai was the best part of this movie. Every scene involving Darkrai was great, partially because Darkrai has a cool design, but mostly because Darkrai was the most interesting character in the movie. Darkrai had a great backstory, and the production team did a great job of showing the audience that Darkrai was not the monster everyone else believed him to be.

Other than Darkrai, the movie doesn't have a lot going for it. I think the biggest reason for this is that the main cast ... of Ash, Brock, and Dawn barely contribute to pushing the plot forward. Dialga and Palkia are cosmic forces far beyond the main cast's control and are the main cause of the dramatic conflict. That is not a bad premise in itself, of forces beyond the characters' control has been done well in other Pokemon movies. But it was poorly executed in The Rise of Darkrai because the characters don't really learn the cause of the problem until late in the film, so everything they are doing until that point feels really aimless, which also just kills the film's pacing. And the movie even wasted Jesse, James, and Meowth, whose inclusion added nothing to the plot aside from a couple of small gags.

I wanted to like The Rise of Darkrai more, but its flaws hold it back too much for me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 1, 2019 10:30 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (1 comment)

	Poll: Pokemon Diamond & Pearl the Movie: Dialga vs. Palkia vs. Darkrai Episode 1 Discussion Spenccr - Aug 18, 2010	11 replies	by CcCharles »» May 14, 2023 2:02 AM
	Anybody know? Vince - May 2, 2008	1 replies	by shadowsaiph »» Sep 13, 2008 9:22 AM
	YOu have to admit.. SargeantDawg - Feb 25, 2008	4 replies	by SargeantDawg »» Mar 12, 2008 11:50 AM