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| Directed by | Kunihiko Yuyama |
| Written by | Hideki Sonoda |
| Produced by | Takemoto Mori · Choji Yoshikawa · Yukio Kawasaki · Junya Okamoto · Koichi Kawase |
| Narrated by | Unshō Ishizuka (Japanese) · Rodger Parsons (English) |
| Runtime | 95 minutes (each film) |
| Box office | $57.1 million (¥4.33 billion, Japan) |
| Released (Japan) | 16 July 2011 (both films) · 16 December 2011 (DVD and Blu-ray) |
| Released (Australia) | 2012 (DVD, Region 4) |
| Released (US) | 3–4 December 2011 (White, selected cinemas) · 10 December 2011 (Black, Cartoon Network) · 11 February 2012 (White, Cartoon Network) · 3 April 2012 (DVD twin pack) |
| Released (Europe) | 9 April 2012 (UK DVD, Universal) |
| Japanese cast | Rica Matsumoto · Aoi Yūki · Mamoru Miyano · Ikue Ōtani · Megumi Hayashibara · Shin-ichirō Miki · Inuko Inuyama · Takeshi Tsuruno · Satomi Ishihara · Mao Daichi · Kōichi Yamadera · Shōko Nakagawa · Nana Mizuki · Shosuke Tanihara · Hideki Takahashi · Unshō Ishizuka |
| Predecessor | Pokémon – Zoroark: Master of Illusions |
| Successor | Pokémon the Movie: Kyurem vs. the Sword of Justice |
Pokémon the Movie: Black – Victini and Reshiram and Pokémon the Movie: White – Victini and Zekrom are two versions of the 14th film in the Pokémon franchise. The movies are sometimes referred to as Pokémon Movie 14a and Pokémon Movie 14b for this reason. The Japanese titles for the films translate to “Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! The Movie: Victini and the White Hero: Reshiram” and “Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! The Movie: Victini and the Black Hero: Zekrom” respectively – and, confusingly, the colours were swapped for the English release, so that each title matches the game in which Ash’s dragon can be caught.
The film was first seen in teaser trailer format at the end of the prior movie, Zoroark: Master of Illusions, with the trailer also acting as a reveal of Victini, the Victory Pokémon. All initial trailers for the movies featured Victini and Zekrom; it wasn’t until fairly close to release that trailers featuring Reshiram were revealed.
These were the first Pokémon movies to complement the Pokémon Black & White (or Best Wishes) series of the anime.
The movies’ initial release came in Japan on 16 July 2011 and the usual staggered global releases followed until the summer of 2012, when the films had completed their European releases.
Release around the world
This was the first Pokémon movie to hit US cinemas since Pokémon Heroes: Latios & Latias and was distributed by Cinedigm on 3 and 4 December 2011. Fans who attended on these dates were given a special limited edition Pokémon Gift Pack which contained the following: a Pokédex 3D card of Victini, a special supersized Victini trading card, an instruction card telling you how to obtain Victini in-game, a sticker for Pokémon White and a manga sample of Pokémon Black & White. Unfortunately some cinemas didn’t receive their packs in time for these dates, but people who watched the film were able to claim their free gift packs online afterwards.
Cinedigm only deals with US movie showings and as such there was never a theatrical release in Canada. Pokémon the Movie: Black – Victini and Reshiram was shown in the UK on Disney XD and in the USA on Cartoon Network in 2011. Pokémon the Movie: White – Victini and Zekrom was broadcast in the US on 11 February 2012 on Cartoon Network.
The DVDs were released together as a twin pack, first being released in the US on 3 April 2012 and then less than a week later (9 April) in the UK and other PAL regions by Universal. In Japan the films had already arrived on DVD and Blu-ray on 16 December 2011 – the first time a Pokémon movie had been issued on Blu-ray in its original Japanese version.
As with most of the series, the setting was built from real places: Kunihiko Yuyama and his team scouted the south of France before production, and Eindoak Town and the Sword of the Vale borrow from the hilltop villages of Gourdon, Èze and Tourrettes-sur-Loup above Nice, with Mont Saint-Michel standing in for the castle on its rock.
Chronology in relation to the anime
In Japan the twin films opened on 16 July 2011, between Reunion Battles in Nimbasa! (BW039, 7 July) and Cilan Versus Trip, Ash Versus Georgia! (BW040, 21 July) – right in the middle of the Club Battle tournament in the Black & White series, which is why the story is best placed a little earlier, somewhere in the weeks before the gang reach Nimbasa Town. Either way it belongs to Ash’s first months in Unova: he is travelling with Iris and Cilan, has three badges on his case (Trio, Basic and Insect) with the Nimbasa City Gym still ahead of him, and his team is Pikachu, Tranquill (Pidove had evolved in BW022), Oshawott, Tepig, Snivy, Scraggy (hatched in BW017), Swadloon (evolved in BW023) and the newly caught Roggenrola (BW034). Tepig and Scraggy do most of Ash’s battling in the film’s tournament, while Iris brings Axew, Excadrill and Emolga and Cilan his Pansage. In the dub the fit was looser: Cartoon Network premiered Black – Victini and Reshiram on 10 December 2011, three weeks after American viewers had seen the Club Battle final.
During their travels through the Unova region, Ash and his friends Iris and Cilan arrive in Eindoak Town, built around a castle called the Sword of the Vale. The three Trainers have come to compete in the town’s annual battle competition, and Ash manages to win with some unexpected help from the Mythical Pokémon Victini! It turns out Victini has a special bond with this place…
White – Victini and Zekrom: Long ago, the castle watched over the Kingdom of the Vale, and the partnership between Victini and the king protected the people who lived there. But that kingdom has since vanished into memory, leaving behind powerful relics and ancient Pokémon. Damon, a descendant of the People of the Vale, is trying to restore the lost kingdom with the help of his Reuniclus. His quest has taken him to the far reaches of the barren desert, and he has convinced the Legendary Pokémon Reshiram to join him! Damon plans to trap Victini and harness its power, and as that plan gets under way, the entire town of Eindoak faces disaster! Will the power of Ash’s ideals convince the Legendary Pokémon Zekrom to help stop Damon? Can they rescue Victini?
Black – Victini and Reshiram: …Damon, a descendant of the People of the Vale, is trying to restore the lost kingdom with the help of his Gothitelle. His quest has taken him to the far reaches of the frozen tundra, and he has convinced the Legendary Pokémon Zekrom to help him! Damon plans to trap Victini and harness its power, and as that plan gets under way, the entire town of Eindoak faces disaster! Can Ash use the courage of truth to convince the Legendary Pokémon Reshiram to help stop Damon? Can they rescue Victini? The greatest adventure in Pokémon history approaches!
— Official synopsis
The 14th movie was released as two features; the year’s Pikachu short was once again an in-flight exclusive
- Pokémon the Movie: White – Victini and Zekrom (Japanese: Victini and the Black Hero: Zekrom) – 95 minutes
- Pokémon the Movie: Black – Victini and Reshiram (Japanese: Victini and the White Hero: Reshiram) – 95 minutes
- The “Pikachu the Movie DUAL” branding on the Japanese posters refers to the two versions of the feature, not to a short
- Pikachu’s Summer Bridge Story (PK22) – the year’s Pikachu short, shown only on All Nippon Airways flights in August 2011
Story
Two films, one story
The two versions tell the same story with the Legendary dragons swapped. In White – Victini and Zekrom the villain Damon has Reshiram at his side and Ash awakens Zekrom; in Black – Victini and Reshiram it is the other way round. Around that swap, dozens of smaller details change too – the Pokémon in the World of Pokémon prologue, Damon’s partner Pokémon, which of the two opening settlements he visits, and which of the tournament Trainers’ Pokémon are Shiny – so that watching both back to back is a genuine spot-the-difference.
Damon and the People of the Vale
A man named Damon is walking the wastelands where the scattered descendants of the People of the Vale now live. In White it is a hot desert: he carries an injured Blitzle back to its owner, a little girl called Luisa, and when a dust storm sends a herd of Bouffalant stampeding towards her village he raises a hand and Reshiram descends from the sky to scatter the storm. In Black it is a frozen settlement, where a boy called Luis and his mother Glacine watch Zekrom shatter an iceberg that is about to crush their homes. Either way the villagers who had just told Damon his dream was useless now follow him. For three years he has been travelling between these settlements promising to restore the lost Kingdom of the Vale, and ever since a voice beneath the Sword of the Vale led him down a crystal path to a sleeping dragon, he has had the power to prove he means it.
Eindoak Town and an invisible friend
Ash, Iris and Cilan arrive at Eindoak Town, a hilltop town built around a castle shaped like a sword. Rescuing a Deerling on the cliffs below the castle, Ash slips and falls – and is caught by something he cannot see, which then lends him the strength to leap up the rock face and guides him through a crystal cavern to the castle balcony. Over a snack of Cilan’s macarons the invisible thief keeps pinching Ash’s share, and when fireworks announce the town’s festival and the gang run for it, Ash bumps straight into the culprit: Victini, the Victory Pokémon, who can share its boundless energy with anyone it befriends. Victini is fascinated by the town but freezes at the great stone pillars on the hillside, and when Ash pulls it past them a barrier of light hurls it back. It flees to the castle.
The Harvest Festival tournament
The mayor, Mannes, opens the festival’s battle tournament, in which Trainers fight for one another’s necklaces. Ash’s Pikachu takes down a Trainer called Mako and her Serperior with Electro Ball; Iris’s Emolga uses Volt Switch against Tatsuki and drags out Excadrill, which breaks the one-Pokémon rule and gets her disqualified; and Cilan’s Pansage is flattened by a girl named Carlita and her Hydreigon – Shiny in White, normal in Black. Ash’s Tepig is being overwhelmed by Leeku’s Samurott when it crashes into a stall of Victini trinkets and comes back with an Ember far stronger than it should have; in the final Scraggy beats Carlita’s Hydreigon the same way. Carlita saw the glow: Victini has been lending Ash’s Pokémon its power.
Mannes, Juanita and Carlita
Carlita’s mother Juanita runs the trinket stall, and the three of them help Ash coax Victini out of hiding with a macaron. It is playful, affectionate and desperately curious about the world beyond the pillars, but every attempt to cross the barrier ends the same way. Searching for it the gang run into Damon – Juanita’s son and Carlita’s brother, home for the first time in years and entirely unsurprised to hear that Victini has shown itself. Mannes, meanwhile, keeps a garden full of Pokémon and a music machine driven by his Klink, Klang and Klinklang, and it is at his house that the friends hear the story of the castle.
The legend of the Sword of the Vale
A thousand years ago the Kingdom of the Vale was ruled by a king and his twin sons, the Hero of Truth and the Hero of Ideals, who commanded Reshiram and Zekrom. The brothers quarrelled over which mattered more, their dragons fought until both were spent and turned into Dragon Stones, and the Dragon Force – the energy that flows beneath the land – ran wild and began to destroy the kingdom. The king borrowed Victini’s power to raise the Pillars of Protection and their barrier, lifted the castle into the air with the whole population aboard and flew it to the mountaintop where Eindoak now stands, where it quietened the Dragon Force. The king died there, the repentant princes hid the two Dragon Stones in the caverns beneath the castle – and the barrier that saved the people has kept Victini prisoner on the hill ever since.
Damon’s plan
Damon means to do exactly what the king did. With his Reuniclus (White) or Gothitelle (Black) he wakes the castle’s machinery and the thousands of Solosis and Duosion that power it, the Pillars of Protection rise from the hillside and close in around the Sword of the Vale, and Victini, chased by its own shrinking cage, flies straight into Damon’s hands. When it will not give him its power willingly a smaller barrier traps it in the heart of the machine and drains it by force. The castle lifts off, the Dragon Force flows out towards the old kingdom and the desert begins to bloom. Ash and his friends burst in to find Victini screaming; Juanita begs her son to stop, Ash tries to smash the device and is knocked cold by Damon’s Pokémon. In his dreams Victini shows him the king’s last warning: move the castle again and the Dragon Force will run amok – which, far below the clouds, it already has.
Truth and Ideals
Juanita knows of only one thing that can stand against Damon’s dragon: the other one, still sleeping as a Dragon Stone in the deepest caverns. Ash goes down alone – Pikachu is separated from him just as Mannes was from Damon years before – across crumbling crystal walkways, answering a voice that demands to know what he fights for. At the bottom the stone answers him, and Zekrom (White) or Reshiram (Black) carries him back up into the sky. The two dragons meet in a storm of Fusion Flare and Fusion Bolt, Blue Flare and Bolt Strike high above the castle while Pikachu takes on Damon’s Psychic-type inside it.
Into the stratosphere
Ash’s dragon drives Damon’s down through the clouds, where both of them see the Dragon Force tearing up the land, and Damon’s dragon turns on the machine, frees Victini and tells its master what he has done. The two Legendaries pour the runaway energy into the castle to contain it, but the Sword of the Vale, overcharged, shoots upwards out of control. Everyone escapes on Juanita’s Golurk except Ash, who will not leave Victini, and Damon, who finally understands and rides Golurk back up after him. In the thin, freezing air of the upper atmosphere Ash apologises to Victini for a promise he cannot keep – to take it to the sea – and Victini, with the last of its strength, unleashes V-create, shatters the Pillars of Protection and blasts the corrupted Dragon Force into space.
The sea at last
Reshiram, Zekrom and Golurk push the falling castle back down and Damon steers it into the path of the last tendril of the Dragon Force, where it settles the land as it did a thousand years before. On the beach below, the friends grieve for Victini – until Ash flings a macaron out over the waves and a small, ravenous shape snatches it out of the air. The barrier is gone and Victini has reached the sea. Damon, consoled by his mother, resolves to rebuild the Kingdom of the Vale the honest way, and Ash, Iris and Cilan say their goodbyes. The credits add one more difference between the films: the gang are caught in a storm by Tornadus in White and Thundurus in Black, Team Rocket look on from a café, and the two dragons go on flying across the world.
Major Characters
Ash Ketchum (Satoshi) makes his first movie appearance with his Unova companions Iris and Cilan (Dent). Iris is the wild-haired Dragon-type enthusiast with Axew always riding in her hair, Cilan the ever-analytical Pokémon Connoisseur from the Striaton Gym, and the pair get a proper share of the tournament before the plot takes over – Iris’s Emolga even manages to get her disqualified.
Victini (Nana Mizuki in both languages) is the Victory Pokémon, the first Mythical Pokémon of Generation V and the smallest star the movies had had since Mew: a greedy, giggling, invisible-when-it-wants-to-be sprite whose gift is to share its limitless energy with others, and whose dream is simply to see the sea beyond the barrier that has held it for a thousand years. Reshiram (Shosuke Tanihara) and Zekrom (Hideki Takahashi; Marc Thompson voices both in English) are the Vast White and Deep Black Pokémon of the Black and White games, the dragons of Truth and Ideals – which of them follows Damon and which answers Ash depends on the version you watch.
Damon (Dred Grangil; Takeshi Tsuruno / J. Michael Tatum) is the rare Pokémon movie villain who is not really a villain at all: an idealist who has spent three years trying to reunite the scattered People of the Vale and who will borrow Victini’s power, as the ancient king did, to give them their kingdom back. Juanita (Janta; Mao Daichi / Khristine Hvam) is his mother, a trinket-seller with a Golurk, and Carlita (Satomi Ishihara / Leah Clark) his younger sister, a sharp-eyed Trainer with a Hydreigon who is the first to work out what Victini is up to. Mannes (Kōichi Yamadera / Michael Alston Baley) is Eindoak’s mayor, Damon’s old mentor and the keeper of the town’s legend, with a Klink, Klang and Klinklang that drive his music machine.
Other Characters & Pokémon Debuts
The tournament brings in a string of one-scene Trainers: Mako and her Serperior, Leeku and his Samurott, and Tatsuki, who beats Iris on a technicality. The scattered People of the Vale are represented by Luisa, the little girl with the Blitzle, and Ravine, the leader of her desert village, with his men Manuke and Donuke (in White), and by Luis and his mother Glacine in the frozen village of Black. Damon’s own partners are a Sigilyph plus a Reuniclus (White) or Gothitelle (Black), and the castle itself is run by thousands of Solosis and Duosion. The mother and daughter who have cameoed in every film since Lucario and the Mystery of Mew turn up in the crowd after Ash beats Tatsuki, Jessie, James and Meowth are reduced to a café cameo in the credits, and Brock is nowhere to be seen for the first time in a Pokémon movie.
Pokémon making their anime debut in the film
Counting both films, 34 species made their anime debut here – more than in any other Pokémon movie – along with new forms of several others. Victini was the first Mythical Pokémon of Generation V to appear on screen, and with Serperior, Emboar and Samurott all present, every stage of the Unova starters had now been seen.
Victini#494 · the Victory Pokémon
Serperior#497 · Mako’s
Emboar#500
Samurott#503 · Leeku’s
Sigilyph#561 · Damon’s
Duosion#578 · in the castle
Reuniclus#579 · Damon’s (White)
Hydreigon#635 · Carlita’s
Deerling#585 · Autumn Form
Deerling#585 · Summer Form
Sawsbuck#586 · Autumn Form
Sawsbuck#586 · Summer Form
Klink#599 · Mannes’s
Klang#600 · Mannes’s
Klinklang#601 · Mannes’s
Rufflet#627
Braviary#628
Tirtouga#564
Carracosta#565
Cinccino#573
Gothorita#575
Heatmor#631
Jellicent#593 · male
Jellicent#593 · female
Krookodile#553
Purrloin#509 · Cilan’s nemesis
Liepard#510
Petilil#548 · Mannes’s garden
Lilligant#549
Mandibuzz#630
Throh#538 · vs Pikachu (White)
Sawk#539 · vs Pikachu (Black)
Seismitoad#537
Tynamo#602
Eelektrik#603
Unfezant#521 · male
Unfezant#521 · female
Whimsicott#547
Thundurus#642 · credits (Black)
Tornadus#641 · credits (White)
Volcarona#637
Cast
The voice cast of both the Japanese and English versions. Nana Mizuki voices Victini in both languages, Marc Thompson handles both dragons in the dub, and the Japanese guest cast is unusually starry: actor Takeshi Tsuruno as Damon, actress Satomi Ishihara as Carlita and former Takarazuka star Mao Daichi as Juanita.
Trailer
The official US trailer for Pokémon the Movie: White – Victini and Zekrom, from distributor Cinedigm’s YouTube channel.
The in-flight Pikachu short
There was no Pikachu short in cinemas, but ANA passengers got one: Pikachu’s Summer Bridge Story (PK22), shown only aboard All Nippon Airways domestic flights during August 2011. Pikachu and friends visit a town with a huge drawbridge, where Oshawott and Tepig have eaten the fruit that Gothita and Darumaka had collected, and a trip across the bridge to gather more is interrupted by Meowth. It was later released on DVD in Japan and has never been released overseas, so there is no legitimate copy to embed here.
Trading Cards
In Japan the card game’s tie-in came through the convenience stores rather than the cinemas. From 15 July 2011, the day before the films opened, 7-Eleven and the Pokémon Centers sold the Movie Commemoration Value Pack in Black and White editions, each with an exclusive deck box, a Red Collection booster, a Black Collection or White Collection booster and one of two promo cards drawn from the film: Mannes’s Klinklang (045/BW-P) or Juanita’s Golurk (046/BW-P). Both were later reprinted as English set cards in Emerging Powers, and the Klinklang was given out again at 7-Eleven in December 2012.
In America the card came with the ticket. The gift packs handed out at the 3 and 4 December 2011 screenings – and posted afterwards to fans whose cinemas ran out – contained a jumbo print of the Victini from Noble Victories (15/101), the version with V-create, the move Victini uses to save the day in the film. The same artwork appeared as a standard card in the Japanese Red Collection and in the Battle Gift Set the following year. Everything is catalogued in our Trading Card Game section.
VictiniNoble Victories 15/101 · jumbo print given at US screenings
Golurk046/BW-P · Movie Commemoration Value Pack
KlinklangEmerging Powers 76/98 · English print of 045/BW-P
Movie Ads & Posters
Posters and home-video artwork for the twin films – the Japanese teasers and theatrical posters for each version, the dual posters, the English key art and digital posters, the Australian cinema poster, and DVD and Blu-ray releases from the US, UK and Australia, including the later two-movie reissues. Magazine clippings and adverts for either film are always wanted.
Trivia & Facts
- In Japan the films were released between Reunion Battles in Nimbasa! (BW039) and Cilan Versus Trip, Ash Versus Georgia! (BW040), but they cannot take place there: the gang are mid-tournament in those episodes and Team Rocket are already preparing their Nimbasa subway scheme. Had the two Team Rocket episodes postponed after the March 2011 earthquake aired as planned, the films would have landed between BW037 and BW038 instead.
- Kunihiko Yuyama scouted the south of France for the setting – Nice, the hill villages of Gourdon, Èze and Tourrettes-sur-Loup, and Mont Saint-Michel – and Eindoak Town is a Provençal village on a mountaintop as a result.
Eindoak Town, built from the hill villages above Nice. Screenshot: White – Victini and Zekrom · via Bulbapedia - Beyond the swapped dragons, the two cuts differ in dozens of details. Damon’s prologue is set in a desert (White) or a frozen village (Black), where he stops a Bouffalant stampede or an iceberg; his partner is a Reuniclus or a Gothitelle; Carlita’s Hydreigon is Shiny in White and Juanita’s Golurk is Shiny in Black; Pikachu takes on a Throh or a Sawk; the World of Pokémon prologue features different Pokémon; and the credits storm is Tornadus or Thundurus.
Pikachu battles a Throh in White – Victini and Zekrom… Screenshot: White – Victini and Zekrom · via Bulbapedia 
…and a Sawk in Black – Victini and Reshiram. Screenshot: Black – Victini and Reshiram · via Bulbapedia - These are the first Pokémon movies in which Brock does not appear at all (he had at least a cameo in The Power of One), the first in which no Generation II Pokémon appears, and – with 34 new species across the two versions – the record-holders for anime debuts in a film. They are also the only Black & White-era movies with a human antagonist, and the first time, chronologically, that Cilan shows his fear of Purrloin.
- The Japanese titles pair each dragon with the colour of the other game – Victini and the Black Hero: Zekrom, Victini and the White Hero: Reshiram – because they describe the hero Ash becomes. The English release inverted them to White – Victini and Zekrom and Black – Victini and Reshiram, so that each title names the game in which Ash’s dragon is caught. It has confused fans ever since.
The Black – Victini and Reshiram title card; the Japanese title sequence, in which the dragon unfolds its wings, was trimmed for the dub. Screenshot: Black – Victini and Reshiram · via Bulbapedia - Cartoon Network trimmed Black – Victini and Reshiram for its 10 December 2011 premiere: the appearance of a Gothita and Gothorita and their Trainer, several of the Pokémon arriving in Mannes’s garden including Cottonee, a shot of Damon explaining his plans, Klink and Klang installing themselves in the music machine, and Luisa peering through a door as Damon talks to Ravine were all cut. Most were restored for the 11 February 2012 airing of White – Victini and Zekrom, which made different cuts and played its closing credits over a black screen.
- The dub replaced the opening theme Best Wishes! with Black and White and Every Little Thing’s endings Sora (“The Sky”, Black Hero) and Koe (“The Voice”, White Hero) with two mixes of Follow Your Star – the Ideals Mix for White and the Truth Mix for Black. Cinema audiences for White in December 2011 also saw an on-screen notice telling them to catch Black on Cartoon Network the following week.
- The mother and daughter who have appeared in every film since Lucario and the Mystery of Mew are in the crowd right after Ash beats Tatsuki. The Japanese Blu-ray of December 2011 was the first time a Pokémon movie had been released on the format in its original language, though the English dubs of Pokémon Heroes and Destiny Deoxys had beaten it to Blu-ray as a double bill.
V-create – the signature move of the Victini distributed to Black and White players at Japanese cinemas during the film’s run. Screenshot: White – Victini and Zekrom · via Bulbapedia
Errors
- In both films, just before Victini reveals itself, Ash asks it whether it lent him its power – and his lips do not move with the rest of his mouth.
- In the English dub a Reuniclus can be heard in many of the castle scenes involving the Solosis and Duosion, even though Reuniclus only appears there in the flashbacks to the Kingdom of the Vale.
- In the dub of Black – Victini and Reshiram, Damon calls the stone he has found the Light Stone when it is in fact the Dark Stone.
The Dark Stone that holds Zekrom – misnamed in the Black dub. Screenshot: White – Victini and Zekrom · via Bulbapedia
Reviews & Reception
The two films took around ¥4.33 billion between them in Japan – about $57 million, the second-biggest Japanese production of 2011 at the domestic box office – a healthy rebound from Zoroark and a sign that the two-version gimmick, borrowed from the games, had done its job of getting families to pay twice. Western critics barely noticed the limited American run, and the film has never had the coverage its predecessors received; what reviews exist tend to call it handsome, earnest and over-familiar.
Fans are warmer. Victini is one of the best-loved movie Pokémon, the Provençal setting and the floating castle are among the series’ most striking designs, and the Reshiram–Zekrom duel is a highlight of the whole run. Damon divides opinion – a sympathetic, well-meaning antagonist to some, a dull one to others – and the common complaint about the twin release is that the differences are too small to justify watching both, while the swapped English titles still trip people up.
On home video the pair have rarely been apart: Japan put both on DVD and Blu-ray in December 2011, the US twin-pack DVD followed on 3 April 2012 and Universal’s UK discs on 9 April, with Australian Region 4 releases the same year and a two-movie reissue in the States later on. Both films also ran repeatedly on Cartoon Network, and the UK saw Black on Disney XD.
Scores at a glance (as of October 2026)
- IMDb – 5.7/10 (White, around 1,900 ratings) · 5.6/10 (Black)
- Rotten Tomatoes – 66% audience score for White (500+ ratings) · no critics’ score“An interesting narrative experiment that results in an intriguing experience” – Sebastian Zavala Kahn, Más Gamers
- Letterboxd – 2.9/5 average for White (9,000+ ratings); Black is listed separately at 2.9/5
- Anime News Network – C− overall (both versions)“The plot lacks urgency and even small children may find it drags” – Rebecca Silverman
- Common Sense Media – 3/5 stars · age 6+“Gentler, less complex than others; has a companion movie” – Jeffrey M. Anderson