Rating of
0.5/4
Dragonball Evolution Review
Myviewing - wrote on 12/01/09
The Dragon Ball series is one of the first series that got me into anime in the first place along with Pokemon. As you might guess I'm not that deviant of a fan since Dragon Ball Z was a huge part of my childhood when I saw it on Toonami many ages ago. After that, I have gotten new interests and new series to observe, but I still hold Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z as two of my favorite series. I enjoyed Dragon Ball for its simple adventures and likeable characters and innuendo that I didn't get until I was as old as I was. I enjoyed Dragon Ball Z for its epic battles, cool villains, and not to mention the awesome dub (IMHO at least). Every now and then, I had thoughts about a live action movie being made about either series, but I never actually considered whether or not it would actually be a competent movie or not. Being announced last year, it turns out that a live action Dragon Ball movie was soon to become a reality. Some were disgusted with the idea, some were excited, others were going to be patient and wait for the movie to come out and then judge it. I was under the third category... Then I saw the trailer.
It became REALLY hard to reserve judgment after that. I could just smell the fail coming from a mile away, but I still had some faith for it. I was hoping that despite its bad trailer, I was hoping that it could at least be decent. So last night I got the chance to see the movie through the use of a certain "method" that I don't think I should disclose on risk of getting in trouble with moderators.
But to the point, now that I've seen this movie, I feel like I deserve to be publicly humiliated in ways you can't imagine for even thinking that the movie even looked remotely good. Simply put, this movie is HORRIBLE! So far holds my spot for "Worst Movie of 2009," and really one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Worse than Lady in the Water, that says a lot. This is one of those movies that's so bad, it makes Batman & Robin look like The Dark Knight. So bad, it makes Delgo look like WALL-E. ^*(^ It's so bad, you could name just about any movie you hate, put it next to this movie, and that movie will look like a *&^(ing masterpiece compared to this cluster&^$# that dares to call itself a movie. So why do I hate this movie so much? Well let me get the good points out of the way first, which are the few points where Evolution stays true to it's source material
Goku (Justin Chatwin) lives with his "Grandpa" Gohan (Randall Duk Kim).
He has the four-star dragon ball.
Yamcha's (Joon Park) a bandit
Bulma (Emmy Rossum) gets Goku started on the journey to find the dragonballs.
Master Roshi (Yun-Fat Chow) is a pervert
Piccolo (James Marsters) is scarily awesome
Goku turns into the Great Ape.
Those are what I call the seven dragon balls that could have saved this movie, but instead of using a wish to make this movie somewhat decent, if the movie were a person, it would be sucking on all seven of them right now.
So onto the story. The story overall follows the basic idea of the Dragon Ball anime/manga, but takes way too many liberties that just don't work for me. For starters, Goku is a teenager at the beginning, but that's okay, I'll live. Just so long as Justin Chatwin is likeable enough of a character, I'll be fine. You might know Mr. Chatwin from the 2005 movie War of the Worlds where he plays as the teenage son Robbie. I don't know if Justin has reached the right age to have fully establish who he is as an actor, but his rendition of Goku is about as likeable as Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid) in the 2005 movie Alone in the Dark. The movie tries to convincingly portray him as an emo kid in an environment that just doesn't work in a Dragon Ball setting. #$@( the first half hour of the movie shows him in high school, and it feels more like you're watching some bad direct to TV high school drama than a Dragon Ball movie. What's worse is that the movie is approximately 82 minutes long, and it wastes a perfectly good half hour on stupid high school drama that I've been done with for three years already and it still haunts me! It gets even worse when the movie tries to combine elements of his real character from the anime/manga, but it just doesn't work because the movie portrays him so much as an emo!
You think the worst is over? Oh that's the interesting thing about Dragon Ball Evolution. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it comes around and gets worse. The next 52 minutes try to condense the movie into the typical following of the source material, but it butchers these moments completely. Master Roshi is still a pervert, and Yun-Fat Chow does a pretty convincing interpretation of him... For the first minute or two. After that, he overacts so much that he gets annoying. Basically the movie tries to condense Krillin and Master Roshi into a single character, but the two combined just doesn't feel right.
The decline goes further when we meet Yamcha. For some #&$!ing reason, somebody thought, "Hey we've screwed over the fanboys already, let's unnecessarily make Yamcha some surfer dude!" No joke, Yamcha speaks like that stupid Califronia surfer dude you hear from. It gets even better, Bulma says that the next Dragon ball was a few miles away from them, then for some reason it's already a few meters away! Plothole City AHOY! Then there's some random chick who acts as a servant to Piccolo who just appears out of nowhere, I don't even know who she's called, just some random person serving Piccolo, and she tries to defeat them and take the Dragon ball to her master.
Speaking of Piccolo, I feel like I should lament on this wasted opportunity he was. A majority of the cast itself is just horrible, but James Marsters is simply perfect! His acting is chillingly cold and he just passes off like a live action interpretation of Piccolo should. He's like the Mike Pollock of the cast, amidst the horrible cast of actors, he's the one who seems to take what talent they had and hogs it all for himself. But salt is poured in the wound when there's just this one sad fact... HE ONLY HAS LIKE 16 *(^$ING LINES OF DIALOGUE THORUGHOUT THE ENTIRE &^$%ING MOVIE~!!!! This also makes Piccolo somewhat like the GORT of the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. He's probably the best thing the movie has to offer, but no one is going to notice him because he's so criminally underused.
Anyway, onto the main confrontation itself, you'd think after a horrible series of minutes wasted, the movie would at least try and redeem itself at this point because final battles are always epic. @#*^ The last half hour of D-War managed to save the movie from total !$&*age in my opinion. But here's the really interesting thing. The final battle is the worst part of the movie if you can believe that. Goku does turn into his Great Ape form, and for some *^($ing reason, Piccolo is somehow able to control him to get the dragon balls for him! SINCE WHEN THE (*(Y%*^&(W*Y(#*)$&^)@#($&)*(&&ING FUNGLE (*$&*^%#$% DO SAIYANS SERVE THE (&$)%(&&^(*#%)&^$^$&ING NAMEKS?!?!?!?!??!!??!?!? Oh and here's the moldy cherry to top off this sundae of @*(&@#(%*&, Goku turns back into his normal self, BUT HE DOES SO, BY LEARNING THE REGURGITATED LESSON THAT WE'VE HAD TO DEAL WITH SINCE WE WERE KIDS! "Just be yourself and have faith in who you are! :)" BUL@#(*%^&$*%&^$(*^&@#*^$@&*!!! IF GOKU'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE SAIYAN THAT HIS PAST IMPLIES, THAT KIND OF SPEECH SHOULD BE WORTHLESS TO HIS GREAT APE FORM!!! And then Justin Chatwin pulls off possibly the worst finishing move in cinematic history, he defeats Piccolo with a simple Kamehameha wave. Even if it were that powerful, Justin sure doesn't make it feel that way, his acting just hits that low of a low.
So overall, if you've seen the trailer of Dragon Ball Evolution, you've essentially seen the best the movie has to offer. The movie is every bit as bad, and worse. There's no cult appeal to this piece of crap, there's nothing here to make the movie so bad that it's worth seeing just for the LOLs, and that's coming from a guy who likes to watch these kind of movies every once in a full moon. I even heard that three sequels are being planned for this movie, but I'm able to jump around like the happy Great Ape I am right now since this movie bombed in the box office. You may find it hard to believe, but this abortion of a movie cost $100 million to produce.
Now about the budget, may I ask just where all that money went?! This movie looks and feels like something I'd watch on the Sci-Fi Channel for crying out loud! I bet this is how it worked, they paid Justin Chatwin $90 million to be in this movie and then used the other 10 to make some glorified Sci-Fi original picture. James Wong, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, I'm sure you've made some good movies prior to this, but this is just a disgrace. Not just to old time Dragon Ball fans who've wanted a live action interpretation, not just to movie enthusiasts. But rather to humanity in general.
So overall, what would be my final thoughts on this movie? Well it's like this, when this movie comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray, if you see them anywhere, just destroy it on the spot. But then again, if you've always hated Dragon Ball and you've wanted to use something to bash against its fans, then go right ahead and see it, be my guest, I'm pro-torture after all (not really). Otherwise, just don't touch this movie with a 8,289,376,504,651,752,347,593,487,538,547,903,475,912,875,238,965,345,698,374,563,487,956,238 ½ mile pole.
