Pokémon:the Movie 2000

Thanks to a greedy Pokémon collector, Earth's weather patterns are askew and its population doomed unless Pokémon trainer Ash can return three glass balls to their proper place in this second Pokémon feature. Unlike the television show, the movie features little violence and no Pokémon battles in the classic sense. Instead, the focus is an environmental one: what happens when humans interfere with the harmony of Earth's elements--in this case fire, ice, and lightning. Even Team Rocket have a (temporary, to be sure) change of heart, joining Ash and Misty in their effort to free the three imprisoned birdlike Pokémon who regulate those elements. The good intentions of this 76-minute film, however, don't make it any less dull for grownups (even though this feature is better than the first). Even more mind-numbing than the feature is the lead-in short, "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure," in which Pikachu and Pokémon friends follow Team Rocket's feline down a hole into a Munchkinland-type place. Without the humans for dialogue, viewers must endure a full 20 minutes of nothing but the squawks and squeaks of pocket monsters. As the movie's title song says, "We all live in a Pokémon world." (Ages 3 and older.) --Kimberly Heinrichs