The film stars the regular television cast of Rica Matsumoto, Yuji Ueda, Mayumi Iizuka, Megumi Hayashibara, Shin-ichiro Miki and Ikue Ōtani.

[1] Alto Mare, the main setting of the film, is based on the real-world city of Venice, Italy, with Yuyama choosing the location as a basis in order to communicate the feeling of entering a mysterious world.

[2] This version stars the regular television cast of Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart, Rachael Lillis and Maddie Blaustein.

At a local museum, the trio learn from its curator and Bianca's grandfather Lorenzo about Alto Mare's history, the defense mechanism, and the evil trainer's fossilized Pokémon on display.

Ash finds Bianca and chases her across the city into a hidden garden where Latias and Latios live.

As Pikachu plays with the Pokémon, Lorenzo shows Ash the Soul Dew, unaware that Annie and Oakley have used an unmanned aerial vehicle to infiltrated the sanctuary.

That evening, Annie and Oakley capture Latios and the Soul Dew to power the D.M.A., but Latias escapes and seeks Ash's help.

Using the defense mechanism, Oakley locks down the city and revives the evil trainer's Pokémon from the dead.

After escaping the lockdown, Ash, Pikachu and Latias travel to the museum to rescue Latios and disable the defense mechanism in the ensuing fight.

Later, Ash and his friends are about to depart Alto Mare when a mysterious girl resembling Bianca arrives to see them off.

[3] Though the films maintained a degree of popularity,[5] by the time of its predecessor's release, the hype surrounding the Pokémon franchise was beginning to die down, resulting in 4Ever doing poorly at the box office.

[1] The film was aired alongside the short episode "Camp Pikachu", which introduced the Pokémon Wynaut to the franchise.

It later fell to ninth place at the Japanese box office behind Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Stuart Little 2.

"[14] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 27 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.

[15] Desson Howe of The Washington Post stated that "This one's for kids and no one else",[16] with The Austin Chronicle's Marc Savlov also giving the film a negative review.

[17] Robert Koehler, writing for Variety, highlighted the fun atmosphere and visuals of the film, as well as its music, but criticized how these aspects faltered after Annie and Oakley's plot-line commences.

He additionally criticized the visual designs and sound effects of Latias and Latios and the rendering of 3-D models found in the film.