Parent: Sequel annoying, agonizing> 5-year old loves ‘Pokemon 2000’

Agony, thy name is Pokemon.

The producers of last year’s “Pokemon: The Movie,” not content with the bajillions they’ve already made, are back to torture parents everywhere with “Pokemon 2000.” The sequel featuring these Japanese imports once again proves that these creatures have successfully wrested the title of “most annoying, unintelligible, amorphous blobs” from the Teletubbies.

For those of you who have been living in a pop-cultural cave, pokemon are “pocket monsters,” superpowered, slightly animal-shaped creatures who are kept in little red balls by their “trainers.” I’ve never figured out what they’re training for, but I digress.

Like its predecessor, “Pokemon 2000” is composed of two parts: a short, lightweight opener (lightweight and pokemon may be redundant) and a longer, second segment with a “message.” The opener this time was “Pikachu’s Rescue Adventure,” in which the series’ star, the yellow, lightning-firing beastie Pikachu, leads his colorful fellow pokemon in a rescue of a smaller pokemon, who had landed in a nest of talking eggs (wouldn’t they have loved this in the ’60s?). To do so, they must overcome harsh, frequently changing weather (Mainers can relate). The pokemon communicate in a series of grunts and squeals, which left me aching for subtitles, a rare thing.

The best thing I could say about “Pikachu’s Rescue Adventure” was that it was over relatively quickly. While the inexperienced adults in the audience breathed a sigh of relief and stood up to leave, the feature then began.

The second segment promoted the balance of nature and condemned greed (that’s ironic coming from the current mass-marketing champ). The plot in brief: A rapaciouscollector sets out to capture the elemental pokemons of fire, lightning, ice and water. In doing so, he upsets the natural order of things, resulting in drastic changes in weather patterns around the world. So it’s up to pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum and his fellow big-eyed waifs to save the day.

They battle long odds to do so. They fight on, and on, and on, and on (the film had to have lasted more than the maximum 90 minutes for kids, but maybe it just seemed that way). After a while, there was little to do but admire the dynamic background animation that those pesky trainers kept running in front of.

My 5-year-old junior critic, no surprise, LOOOVED it. She “loved everything about it.” We even had to sit through the end credits. Asked about whether she liked it more or less than the original, she wouldn’t decide. “I like them the same.” She just doesn’t get this critic thing.

Anyway, my advice is that if you can hold off on seeing “Pokemon 2000” until it comes out on video, do so. That way, you can be in another room, doing something more enjoyable, like ironing or grouting the tub. If you must go, bring a book, a penlight and earplugs. That way, “Pokemon 2000” won’t be two hours of your life that you’ll never get back.

Dale McGarrigle is a Style writer who writes about contemporary music, television and pop culture. His 5-year-old daughter, Samantha, appreciates the classic cartoons of the ’60s and ’70s, so hopefully she’ll outgrow this “Pokemon” thing soon, real soon.