Review - Dragonball Evolution

So, second of unemployment, I watched the second movie in my "Must Watch" list for 2009- the Hollywood made Dragonball Evolution, based on the manga series Dragonball by Akira Toriyama.

Well, since the announcement of this production and throughout the process, the leaked pictures, the official trailers and stuff, this movie has been the central attention of all anime and DB fans. While most Watchmen fans got excited when they see the pictures how faithful the director frame the shoot for Watchmen movie, fans of DB was shocked and sigh at every new Dragonball Evolution brought us. Reason being, like the Hollywood Godzilla, this is almost DINO - Dragonball In Name Only.

Goku, the naive amnesia Saiyan fighter in the original manga and anime, is now a stereotypical Hollywood teen movie's teenager. He is now a cliche "The One" with very powerful skill but never allowed to show of and being the laughing stalk of other common stereotypical rich high school kids. Well, put it this way, his profile more like Goten or his descendant in one of a TV special production. Goten, at the very end of the manga is a rather spoiled brat along with Trunks, while the descendant in the TV special is constantly bullied by his schoolmate and have his potential unlocked at the very end with the help of his granny and his friends.

The hard-to-make-friend-Goku

Is it so hard to write a lead who the main interest is to fight and get better in fighting? Who the only interest other than fighting is eating? Who is not romantic and does not even know what marriage is (and in early teenage years doesn't even know how to differentiate girls from guys). Screw you Hollywood!!!

If Roshi really looks like him, he won't be a pervert, he'll be a pimp.

Granpa Gohan, annoyingly still alive, and is not killed by the Oozaru Goku. One of the interesting sub plot in the original manga is the revealing of the truth behind Granpa Gohan's death. Muten Roshi, played by Chow Yun-Fatt, although a fun performance and to a certain extend rather close to the original, is ruin by half-hearted character design. The symbolic of Roshi, the Turtle Hermit is that he is old, damn old and have live for damn bloody long. At least give him some white hair so that we know this is the guy that trained Granpa Gohan before.

The cast of Dragon's Balls and Bulma Briefless...I mean Yamcha and Bulma

Yamcha looks like a porn actor, which the look is never important, since in porn the camera will either focus on the action and the expression of the female actor. Bulma, the source of eye candy and "fan service" in the manga is played by a bithcy looking girl with a bithcy performance. Hey, she's the daughter of the super large corporation's owner, she can be spoiled, but not like a whore like bitch. Worst part is, being the sexiest and hottest character in the manga, this movie Bulma show even less skin then Chi-chi. And Chi-chi, who is more memorable as the traditional mother, is now the hottest in the movie. This probably is the only nice thing to watch in the movie.

I used to hate Chi-chi in the manga, after she became a mother, but who can hate this?

Piccolo...sigh sigh sigh. Where's the tentacles, and the pointy ears? This is just a guy in a green mask (remember The Mask?)and a black body suit. The prominent characteristic of a Nameck is the ability to stretch all his limbs and this is never presented. But the portrayal is majestic enough to have the Evil Lord feel. Despite the lousy character design again, this Piccolo is actually add some depth to the original character. If there will be a sequel, I hope the same guy will play him again and hopefully Lord Kami will be written in.

Lucky the sword is only in promo poster, he still fights unarmed in the movie.

Actionwise, this is till not hyper kinetic enough. I was expecting at least something like the end fight in Matrix Revolution, if not something better. But still, action rather not so elaborated and we won't get the kick like we used to when watching the anime or playing the game. I miss the atmosphere when the characters are charging their Ki and all the debris starting to floating around, and in a flash they dash towards each other, exchanging super fast blow and one gets an upper hand, delivers a heavy blow sending the opponent speeding towards the rocky mountain, hit through it and everything gets dusty....The atomic boom like disaster we saw in the trailer is not the outcome of a fight, but just a pre-cog vision, boring and disappointing.

No, this is not the outcome of Goku and Piccolo exchanging Ki blast, this is a quasi T2 Apocalypsepre-cog vision.

Overall this is a fun popcorn movie to watch. We'll find a lot of cliche in it, but cliche works on popcorn movie, especially when tonnes of effects and action take place. The fact that it is a Dragonball movie will give you a mindset that this take place not in this world, so we need no reason for whatever technology or geography or scientific issue presented in this movie. But being a Dragonball movie, it will also effect you acceptance to this movie, where we tend to compare.

While the manga Goku learn Kamehameha naturally, this Goku needs sex as encouragement.

A word of advice, to enjoy this movie, take it as a alternate universe for Dragonball, or a special movie where Goku get reincarnated into another universe thanks to Pilaf making a wish using the Dark Dragonball again. Just do not expect it to be a true translation (not even a little) from manga to film, you will end up crying in the theater. Alternate universe, this is how I enjoyed this film.