Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It was great to see a pokemon movie with Serena, Bonnie, and Clemont into it. Unfortunately, the movie keeps making the same mistakes that the other lesser Pokémon films made. It's too short! In a movie that has tons of characters that can be really annoying! It's bad when they try to cram in all of these characters in something that's so short. I am still glad to be introduced to all of these new pokemon, even though I'll probably forget them. This movie's plot features a pokemon princess (yes, really) Diancie, who has to make diamonds to stop a cocoon containing Yveltal with help from Xerneas.Does it seem like I'm just making up words? I feel bad for not being able to keep up with them. Team Rocket do appear for awhile, so they're cool. This just tries to put in so many pokemon and I think they're like five different people that are coming after Diancie in the end. I guess since all featured pokemon in movies can use telepathy, it's not a big deal to hear them talk. The movies themselves are formulaic with Ash and the gang simply meeting some new legendary talking pokemon they have to save. The earlier films really did have variety. Not even an AmourShipping moment! *1/2

Quite honestly, this Pokémon adventure didn't really do it for me. Despite the action and adventure, a lot of the time, I felt like I was watching one of those movies that are aimed at little girls ages 6 or younger.The plot is SO clichéd. It's your basic story about a spoiled princess with a heart of gold who doesn't think she's worthy and has to prove to be a real princess.Diancie is incredibly annoying and incredibly adorable in equal amounts. With her always cheerful attitude and the many "girly" scenes such as the 2-minute scene where they shop for clothes, this felt more like "My Little Pony" than Pokémon. I know Pokémon is generally aimed at a younger audience, but come on!We have yet another Pokémon film that suffers from one-dimensional, unexplored villains. I like the idea of having one of the villains be a ninja, but they failed to make Ninja Riot or his partner Marilyn Flame characters that you can really take seriously. The other party who is after Diancie felt unnecessary.Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie are weak characters, just like Iris and Cilan from the previous generation. The scene where Ash nearly falls from the ladder to get Diancie is so stupid. Clemont later gets one of his Pokémon to get Diancie instead. Why didn't he just do that in the first place?Things got better in the last 15 minutes. Yveltal is an ideal legendary Pokémon, and Pikachu turning into stone and being brought back was a nice tribute to the first Pokémon movie.To be fair, the film is reasonably entertaining, but it still doesn't cut it as a Pokémon movie. It's still better than "Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice" and it's also better than its successor ("Hoopa and The Clash of Ages"), but it still remains one of the worst Pokémon movies.RATING: C

This movie is not my piece of a beautiful gem ring when the movie heavily focuses on filler and lackluster writing for the same of all movies created. Ash and the crew are on the game to prevent the cocoon of destruction and stop yveltal from destructing the diamond domain by diancie. at least a good amount of Pokémon within the first four generations were brought back to the movie, but none of this ever compensates for the movie's budget and mediocre writing. this movie is a step in pikachu's unfortunate implications and even cruelty. After all of the destruction yveltal caused, xerneas was able to avert the damage yevltal did, and thus saving the diamond domain. My favorite character is Diancie because of her cute look and voice, and her mega evolved form looks even beautiful than sunny skies.cringe-inducing visuals: 1/5 cringe-inducing audio: 2/5 lackluster writing: 5/5 annoyance: 3/5 disturbing content: 4/5 unnecessary cruelty: 4/5 low production values: 3/5 rancid morals: 4/5 unfortunate implications: 5/5 character derailment: 5/5other notes: whether loaded with diamonds or not, this movie is nearly full of cruelty to diamonds and filler. it is also a next huge step in horrible morals, and bonnie's flanderization.

POKÉMON THE MOVIE: DIANCIE AND THE COCOON OF DESTRUCTION is the 17th movie in the Pokémon franchise. While it's not one of the better movies in the series, it has its moments of visual spectacle and excitement and should still delight the series' many fans. The big problem with this one is the sheer multiplicity of villainous factions, all trying to abduct the cute and diminutive Diancie, a jewel Pokémon princess from some underground kingdom. There are at least four factions after Diancie because of her budding ability to conjure diamonds out of thin air. The fact that her diamonds, initially at least, evaporate after a few minutes doesn't seem to deter any of them. Even Team Rocket gets into the act, making for the biggest parts they've had in a Pokémon movie—probably ever!--and one of the few times they've been active villains in one of the movies.Ash Ketchum and his friends (Serena, Bonnie and Clemont) become Diancie's protectors after rescuing her from a multi-pronged abduction attempt in a remote European mountain town. The most enjoyable scenes come when they travel together and bond and have fun, including a trip on a cruise ship to a big city and a visit to a shopping mall where the girls (Serena and Bonnie) take Diancie to a clothing store and play dress-up. Soon after this, they enter Diancie's underground kingdom where they learn that the heart diamond that powers the place is losing power and only Diancie can restore it, but only after her powers are enhanced by the mystical deer god Xerneas in the forbidden All-Earth Forest nearby. (If Xerneas reminds you too much of the "shishigami" from PRINCESS MONONOKE, you're not alone.) However, lurking in the forest is a formidable Pokémon menace, Yveltal, a giant bird monster that is laying dormant in the "Cocoon of Destruction." Should it be awakened, all hell will break loose.The action soon shifts to the forest and, as expected, the interventions of all the competing villains—Marilyn Flame, Ninja Riot, Argus Steel and Team Rocket—cause Yveltal to awaken and go berserk, shooting rays that turn everything they touch into stone. Only the intervention of Xerneas can save the day. It's all very spectacular, but doesn't make a lot of narrative sense. I wish there'd been more context provided and more proper build-up, as in last year's Pokémon movie, GENESECT AND THE LEGEND AWAKENED, which set up the antagonists' backstory in a timely and concise fashion. The existence of this massive, unexplored forest and underground Pokémon kingdom so close to a large metropolis is never explained. Couldn't the writers have established its existence in a more remote locale first? It may seem like a minor point to the child audience, but in past Pokémon movies they always took great care to establish the more exotic settings in a more satisfying way. A lot happens in the final 15-to-20 minutes, but it was never terribly suspenseful. Which is too bad, because Diancie herself is a genuinely interesting new Pokémon protagonist and is one that can talk, albeit telepathically. Her scenes with Ash & company and her socialization process after being underground all her life are the best parts of the film and make one wish the action elements had been streamlined a bit. It all got overly complicated with the heart diamond, Yveltal, the All-Earth Forest and everything. I like it when there's one strong antagonist and a conflict that directly impacts our heroes, as in last year's GENESECT film (which I've also reviewed on this site).This movie is a spin-off of the newest season, "Pokémon the Series: XY," which is now running on Cartoon Network and which introduced Ash's newest set of traveling companions, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie. Serena is, to me, probably the most compatible female counterpart Ash has ever had. She admires and respects him and is always unfailingly supportive. She doesn't compete with him but has her own set of talents and specialties that she indulges in when the opportunities arise. He should keep her around. When they get older…who knows? Clemont is a young scientific genius and Bonnie is his gregarious little sister, not the first little kid the series has had, but certainly the most endearing. They make a great team and I hope they're all featured in the next movie as well.