Pokemon 3: The Movie (also known as Spell of the Unown), known in Japan as Lord of the UNKNOWN Tower Entei, is the third movie in franchise, released in japanese theaters in July 8, 2000, and released overseas in April 6, 2001. It got a better critical reception than the previous two movies, but it still wasn't very good.
This is also a film I'd seen before writing this review, but I didn't actually see this when it came out. I blame this mostly on the fact that for whatever reason, this movie wasn't released theatrically in Brazil (which is where I was born and where I currently live), even though it was in theaters in the rest of South America. Go figure. It wasn't until years later that I caught this film airing on Cartoon Network; I don't actually remember how old I was, truth be told, but considering the fact that I was even watching TV at that point I don't think I was much older than 15 at the most. Which means that every movie after this one is new territory for me.
The plot is centered around a little girl called Molly Hale, the daughter of renowned researcher Spencer Hale. Spencer is a kind, devoted and caring father for Molly, but his work often requires him to be away for long periods of time. At the beginning of the movie, he gets a call from his assistant who says that there has been an important discovery about the mysterious pokemon known as “Unown” which Spencer has been studying for some time, which prompts him to leave. Spencer's wife presumably left him at some point, as the movie implies that Molly is left alone in her father's large estate, being cared for by the house servants (in the dub, it was stated that she disappeared while looking for Unown).
While exploring ancient ruins (the Ruins of Alph, perhaps), Spencer runs into the Unown and is whisked away into their pocket dimension, leaving Molly essentially an orphan. The assistant arrives at the Hale estate to break the bad news, and Molly is predictably left devastated. She opens a box that the assistant left behind containing the mysterious unown letter carvings they found in the ruins, and spells out the words “Papa” and “Mama” in a fit of despair. As is explained later into the film, the Unown are capable of reacting to people's emotional states and using their mysterious powers to bring their heartfelt desires to life as vivid illusions. Molly's desires manifest, turning the mansion into a crystal domain and materializing her desire for a father through the creation of an Entei, who despite being an illusion, is a character with a pretty tangible and defined personality, utterly devoted to keeping Molly happy and safe. Ash and company get involved when Entei ends up kidnapping Ash's mother to serve as a surrogate one to Molly.
In contrast to the second film, which had a “save the world” plot, Spell of the Unown opts for a smaller, darker and more personal story, which I think was actually a very good thing. The second film had action and a grandiose narrative, but it was missing the emotional hook (you'll see me using that term a lot in the coming reviews) that made the first movie succeed, and thanks to that it was much more forgettable and uninteresting. This film isn't as philosophically interesting or thematically powerful as the first, but it's a marked improvement in the character department.
Molly, Entei, and the Unown are way better antagonists than Lawrence III. Lawrence doesn't really make much of an impression when you watch the film as an adult; he's just sort of there, and is honestly pretty incompetent when you really think about it. Molly isn't a multifaceted character, but she is pretty sympathetic as she has real, tangible issues to face. In a way, much like Mewtwo was the real main character of the first film, Molly is the real main character of the third. In a way, this is a bit of a “coming of age” story for her, as she decides that what she's doing to herself and the world around her is harmful and that she'll be happier without relying on the Unown to provide her with emotional crutches. The Unown themselves aren't really characters so much as plot devices, but they ARE pretty mysterious and menacing (the noises they make are actually kind of creepy, so major props for that).
Entei is actually a big part of this movie's emotional component. He is created by the Unown as a replacement for her father (earlier, she had stated that Entei reminded her of him, and there was a touching little scene of him roaring and pretending to be the Pokemon in question, giving her a piggyback ride and stuff), and is completely devoted to her, so much so that when Molly decides that she'll be happier living in the real world he's completely fine with it and even sacrifices himself to guarantee that the Unown's spell is broken and that Molly will be able to go on and live her life. He is also essentially OP; not only is he an illusion of a LEGENDARY pokemon, but it's made clear that the Unown allow him to be as strong as Molly believes he can be. The only Pokemon Ash has that could even put up a fight against him is Charizard (and it was nice to see him come back in this movie, though I'm not sure how him getting over there so fast makes much sense), but even he proves to be no match for Entei.
That's about it as far as the movie-only characters are concerned. Every other new character (except maybe for Spencer, but he's barely even in this film) is pretty devoid of personality and mostly just serves as a plot device, but I suppose that's fine since this film is already way better in that department than the previous two.
The anime characters (or at least the main three) actually have a good reason for being involved in this film too; Spencer was a student of Professor Oak's, and Delia knew him and his daughter too. Entei abducts her to satisfy Molly's desires, and so Ash has a strong personal motivation to be a player in this film's plot. He remains an uninteresting character, but he plays his part in the narrative well.
With that said, I'm not exactly sure why Team Rocket is in this movie. They just serve to provide “comic relief” (they aren't really that funny after all this time to be honest) and the only payoff we get from them is when they try and pull Ash up when he falls, justifying themselves by saying that although they're enemies they've known each other for so long that their hands just reached out of their own accord. It's a nice little moment, but I still don't feel like their presence was warranted in this film.
It's interesting to note that watching the sub for this film highlighted some of the differences in characterization from the dub; Misty is more of a flirty braggart, referring to herself as “the world's number one beauty” and calling her Pokemon “steadies”. This was something the previous films didn't have much of an opportunity to showcase. I can sort of understand why they changed this in the dub, and it honestly doesn't bother me either way.
Overall, while this movie isn't as interesting and thoughtful as the first one, it is an improvement over the second. The more character-focused narrative makes it a lot more engaging; during the climax, when Entei is trying his hardest to break through the barrier and Molly is prompted to put heir faith in him, I was actually a lot more invested than I thought I would be. While it isn't necessarily a great movie, I did enjoy watching it more than I thought I would.
