Written on April 12, 2009. I seem to have a more negative view as I think back to it.


Mixture of feelings.

Right as the opening narrative closed (giving a history of Piccolo) some guy behind us said “They Fucked it up already!”.

The first 30 minutes of it were unbearable. The typical teenage outcast story where he’s “different”.

Everything about Goku’s character is destroyed, but what are you gonna do when maketing a film towards preteens and teenagers?
You’re gonna have Goku be a whiny loser at school who overcomes that while staying true to himself, with the obligatory “successful highschool persuit of love involving that popular chick at school” that really only happens in movies.
In the movie, Goku’s skills are a combination of airbending, spidey sense, and the force.

Grandpa Gohan I can’t really say much about, except that he’s the typical Father figure. He’s a Ben Parker with Ben Parker advice.

ChiChi’s the typical popular school girl that isn’t a bitch like all the others and looks past Goku’s dorkish qualities. Again, this only happens in the movies.

Things start to pick up when Goku meets Bulma, who DOES have blue hair! I couldn’t tell in the trailers and pictures, but she has blue highlights so there. She’s a bitch, just like Bulma is in the cartoon so I say good job.

Master Roshi was decent, he wasn’t bald but he did wear a goofy Hawaiian shirt. He even showed some hints of the ‘Perverted Old Fuck’, but only PG-Rated hints, of course. If only it were PG-13, then maybe his true personality would show.

Yamcha is another character I say they did a good job on. Sure, he was comic relief, but his voice reminded me alot of Yamcha in the cartoon. He’s even a desert bandit! Only thing lacking was a pet cat named Puar, and if he was afraid of girls then he’d be perfect.

Piccolo I really don’t see what his beef is, other than wanting to destroy the world for imprisoning him in that pot. Ok I guess that’s enough reason but there’s no real character insight or development. Just an angry alien dude who speaks little.

At the end, they’re like “well, the dragonballs are scattered again! What are we gonna do? (everyone smiles)”
At this point, I yell out “ALRIGHT SEQUEL!”.

I have mixed feelings. I feel happy for being able to watch a live action movie version of Dragonball, but at the same time I couldn’t stop laughing from it’s cheesyness and creative license. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, but it was still major cheese. Again, that’s what you get when it’s marketed towards a young audience. More reason for the highschool setting, I suppose…

As a friend pointed it out, if you replace the name Goku with ‘Gohan’, and ChiChi with ‘Videl’, then MAYBE this movie would have made sense.

I give it 5 Promethium Orbs out of 10.