Review of Dragonball Evolution (2009) by Kai82 — 10 Aug 2022

It is a bad movie and horrible adaptation of Dragonball. The movie even surpasses “Avatar the last Airbender” in the awful adaptation category as there they at least try to use the source material even if it is horrible.

If you are a fan this is unbearable as they slap names, themes and tropes from Dragonball onto a movie that is barley recognizable to the source material. I think it is a mixture from teenage drama, fantasy and martial arts.

I picked teenage drama firstly not by accident as they made this clear as starting point. Lets start at the beginning: I heard about the awfulness of the adaptation when it came to the cinema and the criticism did not decrease over the years.

I was curious about this and finally watched the movie. Dragonball is based on Akira Toriyamas legendary Manga that was adapted to a successful Anime series which is based loosely on the classic tale “Journey to the West”.

It follows the main protagonist Son Goku on his journey to find the Dragonballs which grant a wish if you get all together. This is incredibly simplified as there are tons of adventures, lore, characters, developments and arcs to be told.

For the movie: In the introduction that already changes a lot of canon source material we are told that 2000 years the demon Piccolo nearly extincted mankind before he was stopped. The story jumps to current day high school student Goku who is trained by his grandfather Gohan in martial arts.

I stop here not only because of spoilers but to not anger fans. While I have to admit that the movie has its good moments it is often hilariously bad and has wooden acting. Like I said if you rename a few things I would not recognize Dragonball except for idea theft.

It could probably be in my “So bad its good” soft spot but I know the source material so it is disqualified. What to say about the cast. I don't blame actors for being trapped in a bad movie / script.

I think there are great actors in this as I am a fan of Chow Yun-Fat, Ernie Hudson and James Masters. Sadly that could not save the movie. There are cringe-worthy and wooden scenes. Some are unintentionally funny and I repeat it is a horrible adaptation.

Also I do not recognize the characters from the source material in a lot of actors. I don't know about the production but director James Wong is normally far better so I don't blame him either with the benefit of doubt.

I think I praise the martial arts scenes as those were entertaining but even there I spotted errors. In the beginning Goku is attacked by 2 people with poles. He evades them so they hit each other but I spotted without looking for errors that they changed the gap to make this happen as they would clearly miss before.

By the way the scene / fight itself was awesome. I generally like those fights with a bit of cheesiness and say it saves the movie from a lower rating. Overall this is a bad movie. As adaptation it is hardly a 1/10 and maybe a 0/10 but as movie it has some redeeming qualities but not enough to raise it above a 2/10.