Digimon: The Movie
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 Looks like Japan got the pizza, and everywhere else got the crust of "Digification".
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Digimon: The Movie is a 2000 American film adaptation of the first three Japanese Digimon Adventure films distributed by 20th Century Fox. In comparison to the original films, this movie had a significant degree of editing, with more than 40 minutes of scenes from the individual Japanese versions cut out to save time and several plot changes. It is the first feature-length film in the Digimon series, and would be later fallowed up with five sequels.
Plot
The movie has three different parts to it, taking place in different times. The parts take place eight years ago, four years ago, and the present day in the order of the movie.
Eight Years Ago
In Highton View Terrace, before their adventure in the Digital World, siblings Tai and Kari Kamiya witness a Digi-Egg emerging from their computer. The egg soon hatches, revealing a Botamon. The Digimon rapidly digivolves into Koromon and then a very large Agumon, who unintentionally destroys a good part of the neighborhood, Kari states that this isn't the same Agumon they become friends later with. A second Digi-Egg appears in the sky to reveal a Parrotmon. Agumon digivolves to Greymon, but brutally loses the battle. Tai wakes Greymon with Kari's whistle, who defeats Parrotmon and disappears with him.
Four Years Later
About six months after the DigiDestined departed from the Digital World, Izzy discovers a virus infecting Digi-Egg on the internet and rushes over to Tai's apartment to inform him about the newly hatched Digimon, Kuramon. Tai and Izzy monitor him, horrified as Kuramon rapidly digivolves to its Rookie level, Keramon, all the while consuming large amounts of computer data until Gennai appears in a transmission from the Digital World, warning them about the dangers of his growth. He dispatches Agumon and Tentomon to stop the Digimon. Keramon digivolves into Infermon, and easily defeats the Champion and Ultimate forms of Tentomon and Agumon, revealing that Keramon completely skipped over his Champion form and digivolved straight to his Ultimate level. Tai furiously tries to alert the rest of the DigiDestined, but succeeds enlisting only the help of brothers Matt and T.K.
Agumon and Gabumon Warp Digivolve to WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, prompting Infermon to Digivolve into Diaboromon, but they slow down and are severely beaten because of the massive amount of emails being sent to Tai and Izzy from people around the world who are watching the battle from their computers. Diaboromon begins to duplicate himself and sets up a timer for ten minutes as he forces the Pentagon to launch two nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles: one headed for Colorado, the other for Tai's own neighborhood in Odaiba, Tokyo. Refusing to lose and because their bond with their Digimon is so strong, Tai and Matt become digital and enter their computers to wake their Digimon up. WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon gain the ability to DNA Digivolve to Omnimon, who easily defeats all but the original Diaboromon. With one minute left, Diaboromon is still too fast for them to hit, but Izzy forwards him the massive amount of emails to slow him down. At the last second, Omnimon impales Diaboromon through the head, disabling the nukes and killing him. However, the very same virus that created Diaboromon tracks down Willis and corrupts Kokomon.
Present Day
While visiting Mimi in New York, T.K. and Kari witness a battle between Willis, Terriermon, and Kokomon's corrupted Champion form Wendigomon (still referred to as Kokomon). Wendigomon cryptically insists for Willis to "go back", to which he interprets as returning to Colorado. Thinking that he is to be in danger, Kari e-mails Davis Motomiya, Yolei Inoue, and Cody Hida for help in hopes of assembling in Colorado. However, T.K. and Kari's train becomes derailed by Wendigomon on the way and they are unable to meet with the others.
Meanwhile, after taking planes and taxis, Davis, Yolei and Cody meet Willis in a truck. When Willis tries to get their group transportation to his house for some pizza, the ride leaves without him and Davis; however, Davis devises a plan to get themselves to Colorado faster with the help of Raidramon. At the rendezvous point, Davis, Yolei and Cody began to question Willis' knowledge about Wendigomon. Hesitantly, Willis reveals that he, as a child, tried to create a digi-egg after experiencing the joys of having his twin Digimon (Terriermon & Kokomon). However, this only resulted in Diaboromon's creation. Willis assumes full responsibility for the situation. However, Davis and Terriermon convince him to let them help, as they are friends and are on the same team.
At Willis's home the next morning, Wendigomon expectedly reappears, but Digivolves to Antylamon and easily defeats the DigiDestined. Once digivolved into Cherubimon, he proceeds to eat their Digimon, but T.K. and Kari arrive at the nick of time to provide back-up with Angemon and Angewomon. Angry, Cherubimon de-Digivolves the Digimon then de-ages the Digidestined, revealing that he wanted Willis to "go back" in time to when the "strange" spirit first attacked him. To combat him, Angewomon and Angemon Digivolve to their Mega forms, Magnadramon and Seraphimon, to release two Golden Digi-Eggs for Willis and Davis. Veemon and Terriermon Golden Armor Digivolve to Magnamon and Rapidmon and allow themselves to be swallowed by Cherubimon. Inside, they see a manifestation of Wendigomon's true self, who begs them to destroy the virus. After doing so, Cherubimon succumbs to his injuries and dies. After saying goodbye to his new friends, Willis and Terriermon walk back home to find Kokomon's Digi-egg on the beach.
Why It Doesn't Have The 8 Crests
NOTE: The majority of these points only apply to the English-dubbed version produced by Fox Kids.
- The three plots in the movie are confusing to follow, as it feels more like three movies combine into one. Even Pokémon: The First Movie wasn't that confusing!
- The jokes and puns are somehow considered "lowest common-denominator comedy".
- In the second part of the film where Agumon and Tentomon are going through the internet, Tentomon says that he has to go to the bathroom, only for Agumon to tell him to hold it, which is out-of-place in an anime.
- The potty joke from Izzy in the second segment when he says "I think it's your mother's....recipe!" before having to use the bathroom due to him drinking Tai's mothers smoothies.
- Koromon farts in one scene, which he didn't do in the original Japanese version.
- Some scenes are too disturbing for children, such as Diaboromon and Wendigomon, the main villains of the last two stories, looking more like rejected He-Man/Johnny Quest villains then Digimon villains.
- A lot of moments in this film are drop off and are never mentioned again, one of them biggest examples is in the second part of the film where Diaboromon attacks Patamon and Tentomon. While we know Tentomon is alright, Patamon is badly hurt. And after MetalGarurumon attacks Diaboromon, both Tentomon and Patamon are never seen or heard of ever again, so is Patamon gonna be alright? Who knows! We don't know for sure due to how poorly edited this film is!
- Yes, in the third part of the film, Patamon is shown to be alright, but imagine what happens if it wasn't for that.
- Too many plot and editing changes that can be quite insulting to fans and enjoyers of Digimon.
- To prevent people from realizing the flaw mentioned in #1, the transitions were used. Valentín Fuentealba, "The Reviewer Random" even made a sarcasm saying: "Por supuesto que no se nota que son tres cosas diferentes." ("Of course that it doesn't notice that they are three different things.")
- The third of the three segments is allegedly non-canonical, but is mixed with the clearly canon segments. Technically, this causes the whole movie to be non-canon due to Willis from the third segment being mentioned in the first two.
- Much like Pokémon: The First Movie, Digimon: The Movie has many moments that can get too dark with a-lot of cruel out-of-place moments.
- The film has a few plot-holes that never got resolved.
- The first part of the film implies that this is the first time that Tai and Kari has met a Digimon, and in their case, Agumon, but in the actuate Digimon show (as in the first season of the original series, Digimon Adventure ), they act like its the first time meeting them.
- It's never explained as to how Tai and Izzy are able to committee with Agumon and company as it is shown that the Digimon World has no computer of any kind.
- Angemon and Angewomon are shown to be able to warp digivolve into their Mega Forms, while in the show (both the first, third and fifth seasons respectively), that can only happen when the Digimon are in their Rookie forms.
- Weird linking between segments, the first segment serves as some kind of a prequel before Digimon (as in the first season of the original Digimon Adventure), the second segment involves Diaboromon taking over the internet and causing a missile to fall on the city, and the third/final segment involves Cocomon being infected with a virus.
- Even though the soundtrack is pretty good, it has a handful of licensed music that doesn't fit for the movie.
- It also has a laughable and cringe-worthy rap song titled "Digi Rap" at the opening that overuses the "Digi" word in the lyrics.
- The songs in the soundtrack pop up randomly in many scenes with no build-up. Infamous example is at the end of the film, is when Wendigomon is "dancing" to All Star by Smash Mouth, later to become famous in Shrek.
- Misleading title/box art for the fallowing reasons.
- Despite the name, its actually three films instead of one, as stated in the #1 segment.
- One of the box arts shows the characters from the second season Digimon, you would all think that they would be the main characters, and while that is the case, that's only in the third out of the three segments of the film.
- On the box art, you might notice a Digimon beside Davis that looks similar to Terriermon, but it doesn't appear anywhere in the film.
- Magnamon appears in the center of the box art, you would also think that he would play as a lead role, but (much like the 2nd segment), he also doesn't appear until the climax of the third segment.
- Important and fan-favorite characters from the original TV series like Kari, Sora, Mimi and Joe serve no purpose to the the second segment of the movie whatsoever. They are just present for their issues.
- Kari is invited to a friends' birthday party and does nothing until the third segment.
- Sora is bitter at Tai for the accident that happen off-screen, and does nothing but pout on the window side in her house.
- Joe does nothing as he's too busy with his work.
- Mimi is even worst, despite the world being in clear danger and about to be destroyed by missiles, she just sits around at a beach and expects Tai to be here.
- While its understandable that Mimi can be a bit ditzy at times, even she should know better then take a vacation.
- A lot of cringy moments, one infamous example is Tai's expression during the second segment after finding out that Mimi is at a beach.
- Before the beginning of the movie, there is an Angela Anaconda short, which was not only just padding for the movie's runtime, but also the short (as well as the cartoon series as a whole) is just ugly and nightmarish-looking. Also, much like the Pikachu's Vacation short from Pokémon: The First Movie, unless you have the patience to fast-forward it or own a DVD release of the film, there is no way to skip it.
- What's also bizarre that that in the world of Angela Anaconda, they seem to know about Digimon (well, only in this short) as the plot resolves around Angela and her friends excited to watch the film, there's even a billboard of Greymon in the front of the film. What the heck does Angela Anaconda, which is a cartoon kids show, have to do with Digimon, which is an action anime show?
- To be fair, it is kinda understandable since both shows used to air on Fox Kids.
- What's also bizarre that that in the world of Angela Anaconda, they seem to know about Digimon (well, only in this short) as the plot resolves around Angela and her friends excited to watch the film, there's even a billboard of Greymon in the front of the film. What the heck does Angela Anaconda, which is a cartoon kids show, have to do with Digimon, which is an action anime show?
- Out-of-place cartoon sound effects added into the film that sound off in anime.
- Kari sounds a bit annoying and older than her age.
Redeeming Qualities
- While not as visually impressive, the animation is still pretty good.
- While overused, the soundtrack is still nice.
- There are even catchy songs here and there, such as "Here We Go".
- The "Digi Rap" (despite being cringeworthy) some may consider so bad, it's good.
- The voice acting is decent.
- It introduced WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon's DNA digi-form, Omnimon, who was never in the show.
- Great action scenes.
- Many moments are very touching, such as the ending of the third movie segment.
- The first three Japanese film versions of Digimon: Adventure are much better than the American version before it. We wished the first three original Japanese films weren't.
- Its sequels are an improvement.
Reception
The film received generally negative reviews by critics, and mixed-to-positive reviews from audiences. According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 24% of critics have given the movie a positive review based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 4/10. It has a 66% audience score. The site's critics consensus reads, "Digimon is better than Pokémon, but it's still a predictable movie with mediocre animation." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 20 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Lawrence van Gelder of The New York Times describes the film as "noisy and ill-conceived", as it focused too much on "morphing monsters" and too little on "storytelling talent" and animation. Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail gave the film two stars, noting that the "scenes alternate between kitschy cuteness and spectacular violence, with only a nod toward plot, character development, and motivation". Paul Trandahl from Common Sense Media gave the movie three stars, complimenting the film's visuals, but cited criticism in its lack of emotional attachment towards the characters and the plot alienating parents and newcomers.
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