The Pokémon anime never lets up on what seems to work despite that plan not really working. For the last several entries, the films revolving around Ash and company has been average at best and sometimes falling beneath that. Only occasionally has the story been slightly above average, but that's going back to around a decade ago of films. Unfortunately, it's also getting more difficult to go on about the differences in storytelling especially when the changes feel so minimal. One would think that with a series running for so long that there could be some variety to the films but it looks like the franchise may truly be out of new ideas. This entry really feels no different from that of the past several films. The biggest change are the main protagonists...but that's been expected now. Then again so are other aspects.
The story is about a new Pokémon named Diancie (Caitlin Glass) who can create diamonds but not well. She is the princess of her kingdom that is dying and needs to replace the current diamond which acts as their power source. To do this, she must find the legendary Pokémon Xerneas (Mary O'Brady) to help make this ability stronger. On her travels she runs into Ash and friends where they decide to follow her. However, Team Rocket and a few other bandits are out looking to capture Diancie as well. Shocker. On top of that, there's Yveltal, the dark version of Xerneas who is rumored to be nearby. Anything else needs to be thrown in there? Of course, who's handling this project? None other than the Yuyama Sonoda duo. Geez, these two must really feel confident that these stories are still solid.
Let's tackle something that does work, the main characters. In the black and white seasons, Ash, Iris and Cilan's chemistry were okay but probably rank lowest so far. For the new X & Y seasons, Ash is now joined by Serena (Haven Paschall), Clemont (Mike Liscio) and his little sister Bonnie (Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld). These characters are already proving themselves to be more interesting than the last bunch. Clemont with his ill-fated self-destructive contraptions, Serena with her secret crush on Ash and Bonnie for always trying to match a girl with Clemont; the reversal of Brock's situation. They all have their quirks but are fun and goofy in their own way. The team rocket gang are still fun although they are no longer as serious as they were a couple seasons ago. Despite that, they do get more screen time here than the last few films.
However, that's kind of the extent of the engaging characters. The voice acting is fine by all cast members but the characters still don't amount to much. Caitlin Glass plays a great princess but the role of her character isn't new. Further making things a usual go to are the telepathic abilities and legendary Pokémon. It is understandable to a point that new seasons require new legendaries to keep things going...but the legendaries aren't anything to be impressed over. Xerneas is just another "life giving", "wish granting", insert the god-like term here Pokémon. As for telepathy, it seems like more and more Pokémon are able to speak English with the main characters. Can it least vary some? The other thieves looking to capture Diancie aren't memorable either, even though Marc Thompson is one of the voice actors.
Unfortunately, more could have been done to develop a portion of these characters. The amount of individuals in this story is just more than it needs to be. Animation though is still good for the quality of the franchise. No complaints there. Cinematography was taken care of again by Tatsumi Yukiwaki and now also Aya Aoshima. No reason given as to why it's needed. For music, surprisingly the US dub had its own score composed by Ed Goldfarb instead of Shinji Miyazaki even though he scored for the Japanese dub. The weird thing is that it doesn't look like there was a US album released on this...so the point of rescoring was for...what? What can be said though is that the music sounds a lot livelier and has interesting cues throughout. In some ways it sounds like something of another genre, but it works.
The general components to this entry work like viewers expect. The animation is good, the voice acting and main characters are their usual selves and the music is decent. However, those same familiarities find themselves showing up in the same bland villains, boring legendary Pokémon and generic storytelling.
