We watch it so you don’t have to: Dragonball Evolution Review

When I think back to the halcyon days of my youth, I can’t help but feel like a complete hypocrite. Despite my present railing and rebelling against everything Dragonball: Evolution represents, I distinctly remember a ten-year-old Narcolepsy agreeing with his friends that a live action Goku adventure would be “totally boss”.

My bad.

Plot Summary

The world of Dragonball: Evolution is not what you’d expect. Fighters compete for world championships and the laws of physics are made to be broken. Leaps become short flights, balls of energy fly about, and futuristic technology gets a strong dose of old eastern mysticism. In the middle of it all is a spiky-haired protagonist with a great destiny.

Goku, is a high school outcast that can’t talk to girls or stand up to bullies. Fortunately for him, his grandfather has trained him in the art of kicking butts and collecting names. On his eighteenth birthday, things hit the proverbial fan and Goku is tasked with collecting seven magical dragonballs that are scattered around the planet. If he fails, the diabolical alien Piccolo will resurrect the demon Oozaru and make our pretty blue planet a heap of smoldering space rubble. Along the way he finds help from his friends Bulma, Yamcha, Chi Chi, and the lecherous Master Roshi.

Review

Dragonball: Evolution tries to play it straight and pass itself off as an actual film that people over fifteen will enjoy. Despite good intentions and a few inventive fight scenes, the movie misses the mark in every category.

Character Development

The hallmark of a bad film is when the characters refuse to change over the course of the picture. Other than the cursory “learning to believe

in themselves” lesson that all of one the characters learn, everyone is the same at the end as they were at the start.

I know the word cookie-cu

tter is thrown around a lot these days, but my thesaurus is in my other critic’s pants, so it will have to do. There is no depth to these characters. None. Whatsoever.

Character Design

When it comes to the character design, it’s all in the hair. Goku’s hair is a nod to fans of the original, and it leads to a terrible gag involving hair gel. Bulma is without her blue hair, save for a lone streak in her hair. Piccolo looks less like a menacing space demon and more like the great Gazoo. Oozaru looks less like a ten-story gorilla and more like Teen Wolf. You know character design has failed when the audience breaks into chuckles upon first sight of a world-destroying demon. Seriously, somebody owes Michael J. Fox royalties.

Cinematography

Did they leave the special effects and cinematography to the interns? The film opens with unique and engaging camera placement and passable visuals, but devolves to an overblown mess by the second act. The energy balls being thrown about lack the pulsating power of the anime and resemble something a hobbyist would put on Youtube in some shots.

Acting

The acting is decent from Chatwin (Goku) and Yun-Fat(Master Roshi), but Emmy Rossum and Joon Park turn in some of the worst performances of the year. Park ‘s portrayal of Yamcha is over-done, under-thought, and all around terrible. His voice gave me visions of early days of anime dubbing. Rossum’s Bulma is even worse. While not a bad actress, the way she handled the incorrigible Dragonball hunter was more fit for middle of a Fox Saturday morning lineup than the big screen.

To their credit, the actors did not have much to work with. Ben Ramsey took Toriyama’s work and converted it to a clichéd screenplay that lacks substance or motivation. Everything, from the characters to the plot, are just going through the motions. Dragonball wasn’t all about fighting.

Sure, there was a great deal of fisticuffs, but the show had a great sense of humor about itself. Dragonball: Evolution forgoes the charm of the source material and ends up feeling like action scene after action scene being packed in without pacing or reason. The friendly nature of the screenplay is also a huge problem. No matter what is thrown at our heroic crew, the story gets in the way of itself and makes the whole affair easy to figure out. Piccolo’s reasoning for wanting to jump into our bases and kill all of our men is never fleshed out, and the dialogue uses such original lines as, “Get ready to eat dirt!” As charming as some of Roshi’s lines are, the rest of the dialog will induce heavy groans.

To the film’s credit, it never became boring, like many failed action films over the years. Stupid, redundant, and sometimes unbearable? Yes. Boring? No.

Music

Brian Tyler has created a competent score to go along with the film. Some sections seemed a tad generic, but it matched the overall sense of what was happening on screen. He wont be winning any awards for his work, but I wouldn’t be upset to see him compose for more movies.

Conclusion

All things considered, Dragonball: Evolution really misses the mark. The original fans of the Dragonball are going to be turned off by the lack of acting, amateurish visuals, and the blatant disregard for the source material. Sure, the kids will like it, but with a vapid plot and lack of any substance or message, do you really want your kids to watch it? I suspect the money this film brings in will not warrant a sequel, which makes the “surprise” in the credits more than unnecessary. Not giving anything away, but don’t leave the theater early.

On second though, maybe you should.

Rating

Dragonball: Evolution gets 2 outta 5 Hammies!

Film Info

• Director:James Wong
• Author: Ben Ramsey
• Distributor:20th Century Fox
• Number of discs:
• Running Time: 84 Minutes
• Rating: Rated PG for intense sequences of action/violence and brief mild language.