Dragonball Evolution review

Dragonball Evolution
Chow Yun-Fat, Emmy Rossum, that kid in War of the Worlds
20th Century Fox

A few thousand years ago, aliens came to Earth and nearly destroyed using the 7 dragon balls. These dragon balls have now been scattered around the world, but the idiotically jeered Goku ("bullies" call him "Geek-u".) is destined to find them- in 3 days no less!

But before I tempt myself to reveal the entire movie, let me now say that this movie wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Yes, that's not saying much, but there are times when I would actually ENJOY the film- if only for the nostalgia of the trademark- and overall, one could say that it's arguably so bad, it ends up being... less bad.

Contrived romance, extremely bad acting (it's like Chow Yun-Fat forgot how to act! Damn it, I feel like watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon again. Oh and don't start with Emmy Rossum. Half the time, you'll be confused as to what she's doing; is she expressing her thoughts or actually talking? I mean, her mouth sometimes barely opens and yet she talks... Is she also a ventriloquist?) and exaggerated effects (they look decent, but they're inconsistent, as in some of them look polished, some of them need work, and some of them have incorrect lighting) round up the symptoms of the typical CIAA-inflicted movie. What's CIAA? It's Caucasians in Anime Adaptations disease! When you put live action anime adaptations in Hollywood's hands, chances are, it's the white boy saving the day- and true dat.

Hell, I think it's the Caucasian actors who signify important characters. Yes, Chichi's in there and played by an Asian actress, but truly she's just there so she can kiss Goku even after he kicks her in the face. Very romantic.

It baffles me to see Stephen Chow (of Kung Fu Hustle fame) and manga creator Akira Toriyana producing the film! What were they thinking? Were they short on cash?

Ultimately, the film feels targeted more for kids than established fans. I mean, it has all the makings of a bad film that a child would like but would regret ever liking it when they grow up. But for a laugh, this movie serves it up quite (unintentionally) well with skewed logic and loads of footage worth snarkily commenting on.

I'd actually LOVE to go in-depth with every single detail of the movie, but it would take long for me to type as there would already be a lot of things to say in the first couple frames of the relatively action-packed beginning.

My advice is to just stay away if you're looking for an actually good anime adaptation film, but if you're bored, this one's a laugh even if it has to be cringe-worthy at times.

Rating: 4/10