Pokémon – The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back

The 'Americanised' version of Kunohiko Yuyama's primitively animated, samurai-influenced, 'quest and battle' epic (derived from Nintendo's 'Pocket Monster' game) boasts digitally enhanced backgrounds, a new score, a new rock soundtrack and, excepting the favoured baby-ish Pikachû, new voice talents. The story is a humourless retread of a Bond-style world domination yarn with a Frankenstein theme. From a DNA sample, scientists engineer a superclone, 'Mewtwo', who, angry at his genesis, swears to achieve world domination. So Kids ('trainers', in the film's parlance) Ash and pals voyage to Mewtwo's island to do battle. Parents struggle to stay awake, children are spellbound - proof of the film's fidelity to the puerile, bloodless play-fighting, collecting and eye-spying nature of the game's appeal.