Apr 14, 2009

Dragonball: Evolution

Okay, so I was a huge Dragonball fan when I was younger. Ive seen every episode of the show, Ive seen all of the animated movies, and now I can say that I have seen both live action renditions, as well (Little known fact: Dragonball has already made the jump to the big screen).

Anywho, do yourself a favor, fan or not, and avoid this movie at all costs. I was suckered into going by a roommate of mine who loved the show as well. We both knew it was going to be terrible. We knew we were going to be the only two people in the theater. And I knew that if the cute ticket girl was working last night, I was going to make Swanson buy the tickets on his own; you know, so she didnt know I was going to see Dragonball.

The movie is based off of the characters of the show, but by no means has any loyalty to the plot. In fact, if you went in expecting it to reflect the show well, you would be majorly disappointed within the first few minutes of the movie. And, in my opinion, it should have stuck to the plot of the show because it didnt completely bomb like that of the movie. Plot aside, the special effects were laughable, at best. Get this: the best effect of the whole film is actually a transformer-esque construction of a motor bike from something the size of a cell-phone. The fight scenes were atrocious excepting maybe that of the encounter Goku has outside of a party - his artful dodging made for a semi-appealing, semi-action scene - and the time when Piccolo crushes a house.

The acting was terrible, too, on almost all fronts. Chow Yun-Fat always looks like he is trying so hard to not look directly at the camera, and his role as the "master" in this film is laughable. Unimpressive. The guy they got to play Goku, Justin Chatwin, was also unimpressive. There was not a single instance when I thought he is doing a better job than I could have. Newcomer Jamie Chung as Chi Chi did the best job in the film, in my opinion. She shares a birthday with me, which makes her instantly great. Emmy Rossum who played Bulma has easily one of the most annoying voices of all time - right there next to the creepy old lady from the Poltergeist movies.

There is no positive to be gleaned from this movie, honestly; besides, maybe, its ease of poke-funedness. Dont waste your dollars going to see this film, renting it, or purchasing the DVD. I would go so far as to say that you should even pass this one up in Netflix, even if its an instant queue option. It hurts my DBZ heart to say it, but, dang, this movie was bad from credit to credit.

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