Dragonball Evolution Review
By Sebastian Loh, on 06-03-2009 15:09
Dragonball Evolution is what you get when you try to forcefully crossbreed Mortal Kombat, Power Rangers, The Karate Kid, and The Lord of the Rings. Predictably, the resulting offspring of this supremely unholy union would either have to avoid mirrors for the rest of their lives or gouge out their own eyes. Fireballs coalesce through hand movements and then fly across the screen, check! The central villain is a campy green and his Asian American henchwoman is always dressed in a sort of catsuit, check! Asian American old man tutors his young, neophyte white grandson about believing in himself and fanciful notions of "ki", check! And the main protagonist experiences relevationary visions whenever he fondles the main plot device and must prevent it from falling into the hands of an apocalypse-bringing villain, check! The point is we've seen all this before and we (at least those among us with thinking heads) weren't particularly impressed the first time (the exception being that bit from The Lord of the Rings, of course).
What's baffling is that Dragonball Evolution insists on regurgitating all of that on us along with with criminally amateurish acting. Performances swing from wooden to campy and back, perhaps indicative that the actors too are clueless about the plot material. Based on the exceedingly popular manga series of the same name, the film is set in... well honestly, I don't have a freaking clue. It was never explained. Goku's high school is typically American in the present day; indeed most of the film's characters have American accents. But then he (Goku) and his group of adventurers travel by motorcycle to nearby locations (the film appears to cover the timespan of a few days) with decidedly Oriental names.
Ultimately, the plot is wildly implausible, confused and vague. Having not read the original manga series, I can only hope (for the sake of its readers) that the film is an abberant deviation. If you want to catch a quality comic book film, I'd suggest you pick Watchmen (read our review here). If you've already watched it, 10 bucks spent on Dragonball Evolution is still far better spent watching Watchmen again (no pun intended). Then again, it might be worth it (if you want a good laugh) to see Chow Yun-Fat (who plays Goku's teacher, Master Roshi) say, "Believe it, you punk! You are getting your clock cleaned!"
Rating: 1/5 stars
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