The Undisputed Truth

Dragonball Evolution Review

Believe it or not, that's an actual scene from the movie

I remember waking up at 5 or 6 am to see Dragonball when I was younger, then rushing back home from school to see it on Toonami. Not to mention watching the Radditz and Freeza saga like 15 times because they took forever to dub new episodes past that.

Every true anime fan should know that Dragonball is like the movie stature of “The Godfather”,” Scarface”, “Frankenstein”, “Casablanca” and “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” rolled into one, of anime.

Then there is “Watchmen” with its $100 million plus budget. I don’t know what the hell it is about up until I saw the trailer. It looks like a collection of prototype comic heroes. I only found it later it was based on a graphic novel. I’m inclined to see the movie just based on its stunning visuals and seemingly good actors.

Dragonball Evolution had no such effect on me. I only watched it to be proven wrong. I really hoped the entire thing was a grand April fool’s joke, it sadly isn’t and I wasn’t proven wrong either.

Where shall I begin? I may as well go point form before I rant myself a thesis.

• Well first of all, Kamehameha is not fucking “air-bending”, that shit is from Avatar. And Master Roshi or Goku never used it to LIGHT CANDLES (Oh the horror). And on that note Goku’s training amounted to some Tai-Chi shit that Chow Yun Fat probably ad-libbed and somehow lighting candles with the all-powerful move that saves the Earth in the anime series.
  




• Goku never went to school…in the movie he’s in HIGH school of all places. He’s supposed to be a little stupid and playful.




• The whole “bullied around in school” subplot is just downright stupid and not appropriate. This is GOKU!
  




• WHERE IS KRILLIN??




• Apparently the director just kept telling Chow Yun Fat : “Act stupid and quirky” because that was his performance in a nutshell




• Justin Chatwin does not look like Goku physically at all, best bet were to CG-Frodo his ass and cast him as Krillin,  for a couple of scenes it also sounded like he forgot his lines.




• Why the hell does Piccolo look like Dr. Doom??




• Who is that retarded monk guy with the white eyebrows??




• The final battle between Goku and Piccolo was over in under 10 seconds. My first thought is they couldn’t afford anything lengthier in CG. Afterwards its unclear what really happened, Piccolo just lies there immediately after a big flash, there is no blood, there is no dialogue, and Goku just walks off emotionlessly, no, not in a badass way, just stupidly.




• They tried to inject an “another teen movie” storyline in it for fuck sake. Chi-Chi invites Goku to a party at her house?? Goku finally stands up to the bullies at school??




• Generally the movie is just a colossal disappointment and a pathetic, rated-G perversion of the Dragonball brand and name.
  

Why did they do this to such a great series…yet Watchmen could be done so well? I’ve probably dreamed about a live-action DB movie for over 10 years. The popularity of DB/DBZ/DBGT has no doubt grown a lot since its early days on Cartoon Network…….yet the live-action effort is an abysmal, low budget debacle of  Chow Yun Fat at his worst, some skinny wimp for Goku, the complete omission of a major character, and just a total bullshit script and cinemaphotography.

On the good side, the actors that played Yamcha and Piccolo were top class. Piccolo’s voice was done well, and Yamcha was good, they both suffered however from the idiotic script.

If you’re a fan, please do not go to see this. You may be curious to see how bad it sucks, but just wait for it on DVD. Just let it fail.

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