Dragon Ball Evolution

Dragon Ball Evolution. What can I say about this horrible excuse of a movie other than say how much of a piece of shit it is? I mean, look at the poster!! Does it even look like it could be any good? Maybe but still, if you take one look of the poster of this movie and say "this looks awesome", there's something wrong with you. Even the trailer to this movie failed to impress and reel audiences in whether they were fans of the anime that the movie was based on or not. To properly give a glimpse of just how horrible this movie is, let's start with a little background history into the anime that the movie is based on.

Dragon Ball Evolution is based on the anime series Dragon Ball which started out as a manga that was published in a nine year period starting in 1984 and ending in 1995. It was inspired by a Chinese folk novel called Journey into the West and follows the adventures of a young boy with a tail named Goku who trains in martial arts and explores the world searching for seven mythical objects known as the Dragon Balls. When gathered together in one spot, the Dragon Balls summons a dragon that can grant wishes which makes them prime targets for villains in both the manga and the anime who want to use the Dragon Balls for their own evil purposes. With the help of friends and allies, Goku battles against evil to defend the Earth against evil while searching for the Dragon Balls (despite being a complete doofus in scenes in the anime when he doesn't fight).

Since its release in 1984, Dragon Ball has become one of the most popular manga and anime series of its time both in Japan and North America (second being Naruto) with over 150 million copies sold in Japan and 300 million in North America. With seventeen animated feature films and three TV specials, it's no wonder that 20^th Century Fox wanted to try their hand on making a film adaptation of Dragon Ball. The only problem is that they failed miserably in every single aspect of film-making from the writing to the acting. How did this movie manage to suck so hard? Well, there were two factors; the story and the casting.

Just to describe just how stupid the story is, let me give you; dear reader, a brief summary of the plot. On his 18^th birthday (although he was a little kid at the beginning of the fucking anime and manga), Goku is given the 4 Star Dragon Ball by his grandfather and what started as a night of fun turns to tragedy when he returns home from a party to find his house destroyed and his grandfather nearly dead in the aftermath of a failed attempt by Piccolo to steal the 4 Star Dragon Ball. After his grandfather dies, Goku goes out on a journey to collect the Dragon Balls and stop Piccolo from putting his plans of world destruction into action. Sounds like the makings of a great movie, right? Well, it would have been a great movie if it hadn't felt like that the script was being written as it was being filmed or that it was written by a group of five year olds. Also, you know what the sad part about this is? The movie was directed by James Wong. That's right, the guy who directed multiple episodes of The X Files and movies like the 2003 remake of Willard, Final Destination and Black Christmas. How the fuck did someone like him sink so low? I mean, he showed a lot of promise during his stint on The X Files and then he just let that talent go to crap by making one shitty movie after another especially this one. Of course, it could have been worse, he could have ruined another franchise like the Highlander film series or even the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

For those of you who are fans of The Spoony One (also known as Spoony) from That Guy With The Glasses, do you remember his review of Wing Commander? Do you remember how he raged about the casting of the main characters in the movie (which was based on a video game series of the same name)? Well, it's the same thing with this movie only instead of Freddie Prinze Jr, Matthew Lillard and Saffron Burrows, this movie gets Justin Chatwin, Emmy Rossum and Chow Yun-Fat (all which are horrible choices for the roles they played as Goku, Master Roshi and Bulma respectively). Then of course, there's James Marsters (Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) as the main antagonist Piccolo and while I like James Marsters as an actor, I couldn't stand him in Dragon Ball Evolution. His performance as Piccolo was embarrassingly terrible and the make-up job that was done to transform Marsters into Piccolo is just shit. When I saw Marsters for the first time in the movie, I didn't see him as Piccolo; I saw him as a guy dressed up as the character for a Halloween party. It's the same thing with the rest of the cast, I didn't see either of the cast members as the characters they were portraying, I saw them as kids either in a costume party or at a school play. I mean, I've seen stage plays and movies that put on better performances than this. Am I wrong here?

Bottom line: this movie is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life and I hate it with the intensity of a million bonfires. The story is bullshit and has nothing to do with the anime that it's based on. The characters are horribly miscast and the acting is terrible with no effort in the actors' part to make their performances believable. It's no wonder that fans of the Dragon Ball franchise and critics hated this movie or why it tanked so badly at the box office. At the time when the movie first came out, I was vaguely aware of the anime and had watched only one episode of Dragon Ball Z and now a year and hundreds of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z episodes later, I understand why this movie was considered a buttfuck to a great franchise. I heard there is going to be a sequel to Dragon Ball Evolution, I hope there isn't but if, by any chance, the rumour is true and they are going to make a sequel to this movie; there is one thing that they should do to make a better movie. Get another director and change the cast to people who can act and make an effort to make their performances believable (actors like Patrick Wilson and Jackie Chan just to suggest a few). So if you're a fan of Dragon Ball, and are looking to see a great movie based on this franchise, watch any of the seventeen movies attached to the series and steer clear from Dragon Ball Evolution. Believe me, you'll be doing yourself a favor and you'll have your sanity in check.

This is RaeAngel signing out. Until the next review!!!