The real draw here is watching every legendary Pokémon you've ever cared about show up and fight on screen at once. The plot gets you there by basically kidnapping the characters, but once the summons start, the movie stops pretending to have a story and just commits to the spectacle. It's a parade of animation budget spent on things colliding with other things, which is exactly what a Pokémon movie should do.

Ash, Pikachu and their friends arrive in a desert city by the sea, where they meet Hoopa, a mischievous Mythical Pokémon that can summon objects, people and other Pokémon through its magic ring. What begins as curious encounters with Hoopa's summoning ability turns ominous after a frightening incident, when they hear how a lone hero stopped a terrible rampage one hundred years ago by sealing a great power inside a bottle. Now that sealed darkness is in danger of breaking loose, and Ash must try to help his new friend overcome the darkness within before a clash of Legendary Pokémon erupts. The result is an action fantasy adventure that mixes light-hearted discovery with real danger.