Film Review - Dragonball Evolution

Before anyone contacts me to complain about my lack of “Dragonball” knowledge, let me clarify right off the bat: you’re right. I’m not intimately involved with the fantasy world of “Dragonball” on any casual level, from the Japanese manga created by Akira Toriyama to the popular animated television series that followed. I believe my only real exposure to this franchise was found at various sci-fi conventions, where every other cosplay fanatic siphoned inspiration from the world of “Dragonball.” While it absolutely helps to have a prior understanding of the particulars before viewing this feature film, it doesn’t take a doctorate to spot that director James Wong has fumbled and ruthlessly condensed an expansive intergalactic narrative, making “Dragonball” a tedious blur of vigorous special effects, deflated slapstick, and dizzying exposition.

Bullied at high school and unable to control his special powers, spiky haired Goku (Justin Chatwin, “War of the Worlds”) is gifted a mystical Dragonball for his 18th birthday by his grandfather to strengthen his character. A glowing orb of energy that, when paired with six other similar balls, can grant the owner their ultimate wish, the Dragonballs have been scattered throughout the land. Forced into the hunt for the rest of the Dragonballs with cohort Bulma (Emmy Rossum, “The Phantom of the Opera”), Goku seeks the assistance of Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat, hamming it up big time) to tighten his fight skills, preparing for the ultimate showdown with dark overlord Piccolo (James Marsters, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), who’s also after the Dragonballs to help him rule the universe. With humanity’s future at stake, Goku must uncover the secrets of his past to find the courage to fight for his future.

“Dragonball” reminded me in many ways of the beloved fantasy films of the 1980s, only minus a crucial amount of charm and a Corey. Wong (“Final Destination,” “The One”) directs the action as though he’s making a big-budget cartoon, which is something of a strange notion when one processes that “Dragonball” already scored massive cultural awareness as a cartoon. A live-action version of this material seems redundant, and Wong’s fatigued filmmaking doesn’t exactly provide inspired visual fireworks. It’s a flat take on wild narrative twists involving a shape-shifting villainess, magic balls, and a blistering finishing move called “The Kamehameha.” With those ingredients, perhaps the animated realm is where the material should remain.

Newcomers to the “Dragonball” world might find themselves a bit bewildered by the whole shebang, though the casting efforts help to predigest the mayhem. It’s a sound ensemble effort, with Chow Yun-Fat doing his damndest to add some fizz to the movie as the ass-grab-happy Roshi, and Rossum is surprisingly acceptable as the gun-toting warrior Bulma, even trapped under an ornate wig. Chatwin overplays the gee-whiz Goku wonder (the character is 18, not 8), but the lines presented to the actor by loathsome screenwriter Ben Ramsey (“The Big Hit”) already leave much to be desired. “Dragonball” is a mercifully short film, so color me impressed than anyone in the cast could find the screentime to rise above the visual clutter to make an impression.

The final reel of “Dragonball” is riddled with oddities I hope will make sense to somebody out there. The fantastical gist of the franchise is easy to read, but the nuances were lost on me; I imagine a better filmmaker might’ve found the proper balance between tribute and invitation, and Wong is certainly not at that level just yet. As someone on the outside, I found “Dragonball” to be a brightly colored chore to watch, giving itself too little time to realize too many ideas. Perhaps die-hard fans will be able to peel away some highlights, but I fear even the faithful will find themselves wondering just what happened to their beloved “Dragonball” after watching how Hollywood has plundered the property.

D+

Comments

[Chris]

I love your review, but your too apologetic, and your score seems too nice. This movie is less similar to it's source material than the Mario Brothers and Street Fighter movies in the 90s. So the fact that it doesn't even stand up on it's own legs should make it worse.

Maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but it basically removes anything that was creative or original from the comics and replace it with a generic script that looks like it was written by someone who was told the jest of the story by someone over a cellphone who only flipped threw a few pages.

The especially bad part is the original American Fanbase is more than old enough to have been in the industry to write a faithful movie. Maybe it was a cash in attempt on this 25 year old series, or laziness on the other side, but something flopped and I want a restart like what was given the Hulk last summer.

[Watch Dragonball]

Yep, Attrociuos is the word for this film, giving it a D+ is a bit to convicning, some people mite actually pay to see this.

[Mike]

At least Emmy Rossum got some positive remarks (who knew?) But we're looking at a franchise that deserves WAY more respect than being given to the hands of the man who delivered a remake of a film we didn't want ("Black Christmas"), screwing up his beloved horror franchise ("Final Destination 3), or making Jet Li and Jason Statham look boring ("The One"). Plus, 20th Century Fox has become something like Lionsgate, delivering such awful adaptations of video games ("Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li") and comics ("Fantastic Four", here's hoping "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" looks bad-ass as it looked in the trailer).

Oh, well, like Chris said, give it a few months and reboot the franchise, this time starting at the Saiyan saga.

[Kim]

I don't think you are going to get any backlash from fans. The fans of the original Dragonball will probably hate this movie more than the critics. The movie has pretty much no resemblance to the original series except for a few characters' names (who act nothing like the characters in the actual series.)

So basically it doesn't please fans or anyone new to the franchise in the end.

[Tyrone]

Some fans was already calling for the directors head before the movie was released do to how different it was to the original works, something this bad is just going to fan the flames even more. Ironically Goku in the manga/anime was around 8 during the "King/Lord Piccolo saga" of the original Dragonball.
This once again proves that some shows can not be made into a movie.
I'm just scared to see how the GI Joe movie is going to look.