(I read the manga version of this flick, so what I'm saying could be somewhat irrelevant.)

Finally, Ash has his first rival since Kanto that he gets argumentative with.

Verity!! Is!! Amazing!! We need more Verity! Finally, a girl that doesn't have an extreme crush on Ash that he's dense about!

Cross is a f*cking d*ck! I hate Cross with a passion! This comes from someone that kept a bad team member on my team for quite some time!

Ash is just the same old Ash we've seen for the past decade or so, so there's no difference there.

End of rant!