Review: Dragonball Evolution
If Akira Toriyama was in his grave he would probably be spinning in it. It's probably one of the most retarded movies of this year.
The movie takes most of the Dragonball canon, throws it out the window and deficates on the shattered remains. The movie starts off with Goku living at his Granpa's strangely large cabin and attending high school. At high school he's seen as somewhat of a weirdo and is bullied frequently but doesn't fight back because he's a pacifist... He's given the four-star dragonball as his 18th birthday present, meanwhile Piccolo and his shapeshifting ninja/lackey Mai (who in the original series was Emperor Pilaf's lackey and couldn't shapeshift...) are using their giant airship to loot and pillage various locations for the Dragonballs.
Chichi is impressed when Goku uses his airbending techniques (they call them that...) to open her locker, as well as most of them, and invites him to her party at the Ox King's castle her house where Goku gets into a fight which he wins by only dodging attacks and causing his adversaries to take each other out. Then Goku begins awkward chatter with Chichi before sensing through the force that his Grandpa is in trouble. Goku returns home to find his house had been force crushed and after retrieving his dying Grandpa from the ruins he is told that he has to collect all the Dragonballs before the eclipse (which is in/conveniently in a week's time) and that he has to have faith in himself. Then he is accosted by Bulma and then after they come to an understanding they team team up go on a road trip to find Yoshi who lives in the middle of the ocean city and after a brief fight with some Jackie Chan-esque furniture attacks Roshi joins them and Goku gets a training montage.
On their journey to find the next Dragonball they fall into a plot hole in the middle of the road that was dug by Yamcha who some sort of bandit surfer. Conveniently another Dragonball is 2 feet through the rock wall of the cave... Then they all team up and head to Taisou(?) where Chichi and Mai are fighting in the Tenkaichi Budokai Taisou City Championship Tournament. Mai surrenders after drawing some of Chichi's blood and leaves. Then they all leave for a nearby temple where Master Roshi asks the head monk, Ernie Hudson, to make a magical crock pot to contain Piccolo again. Then Roshi teaches Goku how to do the Kamehameha, the ultimate airbending technique... When Roshi does it the Kamehameha is orange and when Goku does it the Kamehameha is blue and these variations in colour are not explained at all... Goku then has to light candles with his Kamehameha with Chichi acting as a reward for his success...
Then Mai, who has shapeshifted to look like Chichi, has infiltrated the temple and is confronted by the real Chichi. They fight then Goku turns up and KO's the real Chichi and is then shot by Mai and has a near-death experience where he is told by Obi-Wan Gohan to use the force believe in himself. Now Piccolo has all the dragonballs and takes them to the Dragon temple which is in the middle of nowhere but it's right over there. Then Piccolo reveals that he is Goku's father Goku is the Oozaru demon from the legend and at this point the eclipse/black moon (which is actually green...) happens and Goku goes all American Werewolf in London. Then thankfully turns into canonical yet small oozaru ape thing instead of the weird monkey alien that was seen in the some of the early photos. Then Roshi destroys the moon Goku believes in himself and reverts back to normal and the defeats Piccolo with a single Kamehameha while flying towards him for dramatic effect.
Then Goku uses the dragonball to revive Roshi who was killed by oozaru Goku. Then they all vow to find the dragonballs again and Goku goes to reunite with Chichi who was missing from the final fight. Then they end the movie by fighting each other, but the screen fades to black just as their first blows were about to land.
Then the credits at which point most people left and during which their was the final scene (that dragged on for a bit) revealing a women caring for an injured Piccolo and leaving it open for a sequel.
The whole thing was about an hour and a half which I feel is too short for a movie, but seeing as they dragged on the movie and included a lot of pointless scenes already I don't I would have liked it to be longer.
Ambitious but Rubbish pretty much somes up this movie. What they've done is taken the plot Dragonball, chopped it up and then glued various plots together as seen in this diagram:
Well I'm sure as hell not looking forward to Dragonball Evolution 2: Oozaru Boogaloo.
ALSO: Actually I forgot to mention one thing I liked about the movie. The set design was pretty good, there were subtle references in the background which I thought were neat like Goku's house had a Dragonball Zen Garden.
The other thing I forgot to mention concerning the Oozaru transformation. Because of fan backlash concerning the first oozaru pictures released on the web, the studio decided to CGI over the prosthetics and CGI at the last moment but they didn't really do a good job. It was of a far lesser quality than the rest of the film and you can tell it was a rush job, hopefully they redo it for the DVD release.
The movie takes most of the Dragonball canon, throws it out the window and deficates on the shattered remains. The movie starts off with Goku living at his Granpa's strangely large cabin and attending high school. At high school he's seen as somewhat of a weirdo and is bullied frequently but doesn't fight back because he's a pacifist... He's given the four-star dragonball as his 18th birthday present, meanwhile Piccolo and his shapeshifting ninja/lackey Mai (who in the original series was Emperor Pilaf's lackey and couldn't shapeshift...) are using their giant airship to loot and pillage various locations for the Dragonballs.
Chichi is impressed when Goku uses his airbending techniques (they call them that...) to open her locker, as well as most of them, and invites him to her party at the Ox King's castle her house where Goku gets into a fight which he wins by only dodging attacks and causing his adversaries to take each other out. Then Goku begins awkward chatter with Chichi before sensing through the force that his Grandpa is in trouble. Goku returns home to find his house had been force crushed and after retrieving his dying Grandpa from the ruins he is told that he has to collect all the Dragonballs before the eclipse (which is in/conveniently in a week's time) and that he has to have faith in himself. Then he is accosted by Bulma and then after they come to an understanding they team team up go on a road trip to find Yoshi who lives in the middle of the ocean city and after a brief fight with some Jackie Chan-esque furniture attacks Roshi joins them and Goku gets a training montage.
On their journey to find the next Dragonball they fall into a plot hole in the middle of the road that was dug by Yamcha who some sort of bandit surfer. Conveniently another Dragonball is 2 feet through the rock wall of the cave... Then they all team up and head to Taisou(?) where Chichi and Mai are fighting in the Tenkaichi Budokai Taisou City Championship Tournament. Mai surrenders after drawing some of Chichi's blood and leaves. Then they all leave for a nearby temple where Master Roshi asks the head monk, Ernie Hudson, to make a magical crock pot to contain Piccolo again. Then Roshi teaches Goku how to do the Kamehameha, the ultimate airbending technique... When Roshi does it the Kamehameha is orange and when Goku does it the Kamehameha is blue and these variations in colour are not explained at all... Goku then has to light candles with his Kamehameha with Chichi acting as a reward for his success...
Then Mai, who has shapeshifted to look like Chichi, has infiltrated the temple and is confronted by the real Chichi. They fight then Goku turns up and KO's the real Chichi and is then shot by Mai and has a near-death experience where he is told by Obi-Wan Gohan to use the force believe in himself. Now Piccolo has all the dragonballs and takes them to the Dragon temple which is in the middle of nowhere but it's right over there. Then Piccolo reveals that he is Goku's father Goku is the Oozaru demon from the legend and at this point the eclipse/black moon (which is actually green...) happens and Goku goes all American Werewolf in London. Then thankfully turns into canonical yet small oozaru ape thing instead of the weird monkey alien that was seen in the some of the early photos. Then Roshi destroys the moon Goku believes in himself and reverts back to normal and the defeats Piccolo with a single Kamehameha while flying towards him for dramatic effect.
Then Goku uses the dragonball to revive Roshi who was killed by oozaru Goku. Then they all vow to find the dragonballs again and Goku goes to reunite with Chichi who was missing from the final fight. Then they end the movie by fighting each other, but the screen fades to black just as their first blows were about to land.
Then the credits at which point most people left and during which their was the final scene (that dragged on for a bit) revealing a women caring for an injured Piccolo and leaving it open for a sequel.
The whole thing was about an hour and a half which I feel is too short for a movie, but seeing as they dragged on the movie and included a lot of pointless scenes already I don't I would have liked it to be longer.
Ambitious but Rubbish pretty much somes up this movie. What they've done is taken the plot Dragonball, chopped it up and then glued various plots together as seen in this diagram:
Well I'm sure as hell not looking forward to Dragonball Evolution 2: Oozaru Boogaloo.
ALSO: Actually I forgot to mention one thing I liked about the movie. The set design was pretty good, there were subtle references in the background which I thought were neat like Goku's house had a Dragonball Zen Garden.
The other thing I forgot to mention concerning the Oozaru transformation. Because of fan backlash concerning the first oozaru pictures released on the web, the studio decided to CGI over the prosthetics and CGI at the last moment but they didn't really do a good job. It was of a far lesser quality than the rest of the film and you can tell it was a rush job, hopefully they redo it for the DVD release.