Last night I checked out Dragonball Evolution. I'm a fan of the franchise as I grew up watching Dragonball, Dragonball Z, and Dragonball GT. I didn't have my hopes set high for this movie, and I attempted to enjoy it for what it was.For the price of admission though I got tons of laughs from a movie that is so bad, it's good.
The film synopsis goes like this. Long ago a menacing alien threat named Piccolo and a destructive god named Oozaru laid waste to the earth before being imprisoned by a loyal order of monks. Now Piccolo is loose and is after the seven mystical Dragonballs. It's up to Goku, a young Ki master, played by Justin Chatwin, and his friends to stop Piccolo and collect the Dragonballs.
First off, the movie is only around 90 minutes long. Events happen right after each other with no real logic or understanding behind any of it. New characters are introduced and plot points are being checked off, but you don't really care about any of it because there is no character development. They could have killed off Goku in the middle of the movie and I wouldn't have cared. You leave the theater without knowing anything about the main characters.
From the official movie website:
"The movie is an adaptation of the King Piccolo and Piccolo JR. sagas of Dragonbal. However, it will also contain important elements from the first season of Dragonball, such as Bulma meeting Goku, and Goku training with Master Roshi. It's the most important parts of Dragonball in one movie."
Except that you don't understand anything about Piccolo who says less than 10 lines throughout the whole movie, and never understand why he is trying to destroy the Earth. Bulma meeting Goku happens in less than 2 minutes, and there is no screentime of Master Roshi training Goku at all.
These are important events that any movie lover would care about, not just the fans. They are essential points which connect the audience with the characters. I don't understand why they took these events out when you still have 30 more minutes of movie you could have included.
TOKYO - MARCH 10: (L to R) Actor Joon Park, actress Jamie Chung, Eriko
Tamura, actor Chow Yun-Fat, Justin Chatwin, actress Emmy Rossum, actor
James Marsters, actress Megumi Seki and director James Wong pose for
photographs during the world premiere of 'Dragonball Evolution' at
Nippon Budokan on March 10, 2009 in Tokyo, Japan. The film opened on
March 13 in Japan. (Photo by Akihiro I/Getty Images)The movie had a horrible script with corny dialogue and tons of material taken out of it. All the actors had poor timing with their lines, and the climax of the movie actually made me laugh out loud.
Despite how bad the movie is I still have to recommend that fans of the series wait until the DVD release and watch it with each other. You'll get more than a few chuckles out of it, and have tons of memorable moments. If you are brand new to the Dragonball universe then you shouldn't see this movie first. You should pick up the manga, or watch the anime.
The sequel is already green-lit according to the official movie website. I hope they explain everything in the next movie with a better script, and try to engage the audience in the Dragonball universe instead of slopping together a bunch of random scenes, and praying it all comes together in the end.
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