DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION Review

I can watch this again just for the laugh, I’m not sure which one’s the sillier part of the movie, the fact that they disregard the material it’s based on or they try way too hard to incorporate original elements and concepts into everything else that’s been changed resulting in… the terrible cast, awful acting, unimpressive CG effects and the ridiculous plot. DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION is an action movie for those who are easily entertained. It’s about as cool as Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and that’s not saying much at all.

“Dragonball Evolution” is adapted from the manga created by Akira Toriyama; the work was also turned into a Japanese anime series that played all over the world. It tells the story of an alien sent to destroy Earth, who has a change of heart and decides to join the humans in their fight against various aliens and bad guys.

Although I grew up in Asia, I was never a big fan of DRAGONBALL like most of my friends were, they can name all the characters and fight tournaments and they’d collect the cards and the comic books and watch the sunday morning cartoon series religiously but I knew enough to recognize some of the original concepts that DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION tries to have including Oozaru, kamekameha, and the fact that the 7 dragonballs would usually get thrown away to separate ends of the earth after the wish is made. So the movie does to try a bit to reach out to the fans but I think it fails to connect to those who might have no absolutely any idea on what DRAGONBALL is all about. There’s a very brief part nearing the end where Piccolo explained everything to Goku supposedly about his origin but it’s not really helpful in making up for all the mess, inconsistencies and confusion throughout the entire movie.
They want to just jump into proving themselves so badly that the character development gets neglected completely.

Let’s go through some of the other hilarious aspects. I find it funny that Ernie Hudson looks more like Master Roshi than Chow Yun-Fat. I know that any adaptation is usually given the room to make changes including how the characters would look on the big screen especially when they’re trying to cater to today’s time but c’mon gimme a break.. not to mention the way Goku holds and stares at his costume like Peter Parker holds his Spider-man costume in awe. The portable motorbike, the bullet time slow motion effects that look out of place and way too animated.
And please spare me from the dialogue, everytime the actors say their lines, especially Justin Chatwin who plays Goku, it sounds like they read directly off the script, none of them give a convincing performance. Even Chow Yun-Fat’s comical attitude is over-the-top and comes off not funny. James Marsters who plays Piccolo looks more like a Vampire from Buffy series and why the hell does he sound like Michael Clarke Duncan in this movie?
The set design looks like it was done by somebody who didn’t want to go the distance. The fight scenes are average, nothing that will take your breath away. And last but not least the whole high school crush between Goku and Chi-Chi or the failed chemistry between Bulma and Yamcha are poorly done and they make you wanna puke. Unbelievable!
The worst thing about this is.. I got a bad feeling there’s gonna be a sequel. God help us all.

* Place the cursor on the image below to check my grade for this film