Dragonball Evolution (2009) User Reviews

The perfect movie for anyone who hates Dragonball Z

[Monsoon77 · 2/10 · 17 March 2009]

Watching DBE i can immediately tell the directors and everyone else involved have not watched more than a few episodes of the entire Dragonball series. The characters are only similar in name and the story feels like they chewed it up and spit it out and whatever stuck to the storyboard they went with. I wont ruin the story but its nothing like the anime, as i said before the characters are only similar to the anime by name. It almost seems like they wanted to make this movie as bad and as far away from the original story as they could. The only time an actor or actress acts like their anime counterpart is when they are first introduced speaking mainly about Master Roshi and Yamcha.

For one of the most action packed animes around they sure did the opposite with the movie. I can count the number of fight scenes with one hand and count how long they lasted with two hands. Its pretty pathetic when the first fight scene with Goku and the "bullies" is the best and he never threw even threw a punch. The big screen debut of the Kamehameha is sad and pathetic and all the Ki blasts look like different color fire balls. They don't look pure energy (like they are in the anime) but just like slow motion fire.

I could go on for hours about what they did wrong. If you have never seen the anime series don't watch the movie. The story is probably too confusing for anyone who doesn't know the entire back-story of the anime. The movie only gives you the who and the what but no why. In fact i think why sums up the entire movie. Why did they do this and why did they do that is all i was thinking during the entire movie. At the end of the movie all i could do was ask "Why did they make this movie and who did they make this movie for?" This is not a movie for the fans or anyone who has never seen the anime. It feels like they made this movie for the people who hate the anime.

As a fan of the series I will award this no points and may god have mercy on their souls.

Even the 7 Dragonballs Can't Save This Movie

[classiccase-1 · 2/10 · 20 March 2009]

For manga and anime fans around the world, the story of Dragonball has to be at the top, or at least in the top 3 of their most beloved manga/anime stories ever written. There is already an existing live action Dragonball movie called Dragonball: The Magic Begins (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122050/) made in Taiwan back in 1989. That movie tried really hard to stay as close as possible to the original story of Dragonball as written by Akira Toriyama, but it ended up being more of a comedy. The entire story also only went up to the Pilaf storyline, which was way before the first Piccolo appearance. This movie, although aged and not exactly a direct interpretation of the Dragonball story, was still appreciated by most fans due to the comedic entertainment value.

Now, another live action Dragonball movie has come, called Dragonball: Evolution. When the first few pictures of this movie appeared on the internet, a lot of the fans already predicted that the movie would turn out horrible because the characters don't look like themselves. The characters were heavily changed and westernized too much, especially Piccolo, the main villain, who didn't look like the one from the manga and anime. Fast forward to a few weeks before the latest Dragonball movie was released, a trailer was leaked on the internet. That trailer spelled the certain doom of the movie to the fans of the show. Most of the comments described the movie as "Not Dragonball, but another action movie".

This writer was fortunate enough to be invited to a private screening of the movie, and boy was I surprised! I was already expecting the movie to be bad and not a "real" Dragonball, but what I witnessed was something much more horrible! Granted that the movie was really different, but the way the movie progressed, the introduction of characters, the fight scenes, oh wow, you'd think it was a movie created by elementary kids who had no idea what Dragonball was about, except for the "Kamehameha" move and the 7 dragon balls, just with the financial backing of a millionaire.

Everything seemed rushed in the movie and characters would just pop out of nowhere and decide to join together to beat Piccolo. The love angle in the story seemed forced as well, everybody was simply out of character. Goku's a powerful but lame school boy, Chi Chi's a martial art school girl who can't even open her own locker, Master Roshi's some crazy dude living in the city (at least he still wears a Hawaiian shirt and seems a little perverted), Bulma became Lara Croft and Rambo combined in another body with a bizarre voice, Mai (originally one of Pilaf's hilarious henchmen in the manga) became a cold blooded, shape-shifting killer, Yamcha became a weird cross between a desert bandit who can't fight and a hobo with unwashed hair, and Piccolo became a weird vampire whose outfit seems to be inspired by the Matrix. I think only Grandpa Gohan was close enough to the original character, except for the way he exits the movie early on.

The fight scenes were lame. Dragonball was about epic sized battles that could not be contained in one location. Characters would get punched through mountains, cities would be destroyed, the earth would rumble and split up due to the massive forces of the fighters. In this movie, everything seemed so lame. Even the Kamehameha attack was used to light some candles! Talk about total weakening!

The only "good" things about the movie were the special effects, although the energy blasts seemed very weak.

My advise is, if you're going to pay to watch this movie, DON'T DO IT. Listen to what almost everybody has been saying because they're right, the movie is worse than what you currently have in mind!

Hollywood is ruining my childhood memories!

[mikely115 · 3/10 · 18 March 2009]

This movie is just plain disappointing to say the least. I don't care if this is an adaptation of Dragonball. The only reason why I gave it a 3 out of 10 rating was for the special effects and production value which were semi-decent. I don't understand what was wrong with the original storyline that needed to be changed and messed with. It's the original storyline that made fans love Dragonball in the first place. "If it ain't broke don't fix it." I think this movie would do a lot better if they stuck with the original story and had better casting. The real fans would flood the theaters to watch it which would bring hype to the movie for new viewers that don't know about Dragonball, kind of like how Watchmen did. Street Fighter was horrible and they expect to do a sequel to it, this movie was a travesty...I guess next up will be Thundercats and Voltron for Hollywood to mess up for me. Thank you Hollywood for ruining my childhood memories.

For the love of god, if you respect the original series at all, do NOT pay to see this crap!

[vas_deferens · 1/10 · 4 April 2009]

Let me just start off by saying that there are no redeeming qualities to this movie at all. The multi-million dollar budget has amounted to a teen drama mixed with power rangers. The final product is insulting, to say the least.

The creators of this horrible, horrible adaption should take a good long think about what they have done and why they should have just followed the source material instead of taken it for granted. Do they really think that the entire Dragonball fan-base is this stupid? Akira Toriyama probably has a noose around his neck right about now.

To finish this off: The acting is atrocious, the butt-rock scattered through the soundtrack will make you want to punch the guy running the theater in the face, and the story is basically the manga's, but cut up, put into a blender, stuffed into sausage skins, and stitched back together with an American flag tied around it.

If you want your Dragonball fix, just buy dvds of the show instead, skip the movie, and if you don't skip it, then at least don't pay for this thing. I heard that a sequel is already in the works, and we don't need a trilogy, that would be three of these movies too many.

Insulting as a Dragon Ball fan, as a movies fan, and probably as human(?)

[educallejero · 1/10 · 16 August 2018]

As a Dragon Ball fan this was clearly not anything even similar.

As a movie fan, this was atrocious.

Its hard to understand what kind of drugs all the people involved were in

A beyond Sub-par interpretation of Dragon Ball onto the big screens.

[robin_dhanju-1 · 1/10 · 24 March 2009]

This is a total butchering of what I had held great hopes of seeing. The movies attempts to follow the dragon ball story line, meanwhile adding a "modern" spin on it (ie. chi chi's castle, and Master Roshi lives in a regular semi whats up with that?). What the viewers want to see is a storyline that follows the cartoon series without any changes, and additions. Overall, the plot is weak, the characters do not look like the cartoons (ie. Yamcha, Master Roshi), the 2D cartoon series had better special effects than the movie (and the series had NO special effects, thats how terrible it was). I created an IMDb account JUST to comment on how they butchered Dragonball for me and I hope that Hollywood is smarter next time as to when they bring such a strong fan based series onto the big screens or they will only infuriate more of the audience.

A contender for the worst live-action film for an animated TV series

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 9 March 2011]

As bad as Inspector Gadget and The Last Airbender are, they look like masterpieces compared to Dragonball Evolution. The TV series was very, very good, the movie was half-baked and bland. The only good thing was James Marsters, while he mayn't look exactly like Piccolo he at least tries to capture the essence of the character. Just a shame he isn't in enough of the movie to elevate it even more.

Why do I say that Dragonball Evolution is a contender for the worst live-action film for an animated TV series? The scenery and costumes are nice to look at, but the cinematography does nothing for me, the editing is shoddy and the lighting is dull. The special effects don't impress either, they do distract rather than enhance and it doesn't help that some of them are half-baked.

The film is also too rushed, and in all honesty I was left bored by the end, nothing really interesting in my view happens. The story is juvenile and predictable, the dialogue is terrible either being cheesy or due to the delivery very rarely ringing true and the direction is bland. The acting is nothing to smile about, Goku and Yamuka especially are complete disasters and show a complete lack of acting ability. Not only that, the characters here are treated in the most banal way possible and are difficult to like as a result.

Overall, a very poor movie. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Dragonball Evolution - What a screw up!

[movie-goers · 1/10 · 16 March 2009]

What is wrong with this picture man? Nothing personal to James as a director. I love his Final Destination series, but I think James is NOT the right person to direct this million plus dollars franchise. Why James is hired to direct this movie in the first place? It is a big mistakes. Like having Ang Lee directing the Hulk. Hiring an Asian to direct an Asian animation epic doesn't mean the movie will turn out great. The director must have a vision of the given materials.

The entire outcome is a disaster and disappointment. It is understandable that the film isn't exactly the same as the original comic, but the characters and the plot just suck as a film on its own. From observing the promotion materials of Dragonball, it seems that Fox doesn't want to do this movie at all. The posters suck and the trailers suck. The studio spends a lot of money on making Marvels and DC comics into movies, look how successful those films had become. The studios should pay more respect and faith in Asian materials.

To me this whole thing isn't making any sense at all because there are established fans across the globe, and Dragonball comic and cartoon itself has last more than TWO decades. This is why I think 20th Century Fox was putting money into this project initially. Everyone is looking forward to see a Hollywood version of Dragonball. Soon as I saw the first teaser, I knew I shouldn't put up in any hope into this movie. Even though I went to see the movie without any expectation, the movie still suck! Despite the led down of the Dragonball fans, it creates negative impulses to those who is new to Dragonball.

Dragonball is a hot cult in Asia and it hits the western market because of the stylistic action and fight sequences. However, the martial arts choreography in this movie is another led down. Not to mention the screenplay, the production design of this film is not consistence at all. Wardrobes, props to makeup, nothing fits together! Not only nothing in this film resembles the original DB, it is a disgrace. No wonder they use the word "Evolution". But when they say evolution, I don't expect the studio turns something respectable like Dragonball into rubbish. I've seen a live action version of Dragonball shot by the Malaysian years ago. Although it is an exact duplicate of the animation. But the movie is far better than Dragonball Evolution.

A lot of us are looking for a remake of this movie.

Overall F grade or 0/10, Save your money! wait until you can watch it online for free!

[scorpionlgr · 1/10 · 20 March 2009]

This Movie plain and simple insults our intelligence, I mean I'm no Geek, but tham they were way off!, this should not even be called dragonball, because of stupid 20th Century Fox, now dragonball is ruined, if someone wanted to make a better movie with the real story that Akira Toriyama made, they made so many changes and mistakes that the dragonball that we know is gone forever, on Watchmen they made some changes but only so the essence of the show could be shown on film, but Dragonball is dead they killed it, I'm sorry Akira Toriyama they ruined your work and about every Anime , and dbz fan out there, like my Grandfather just to say "there's cheese all over that movie" It is illogical to spend the money on copyrights if you're not even going to use the story.

Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network, originally disgusted at Otaku decrying the film via leaked set shots and trailers even before the movie was released, gave the movie an overall F grade, admitting that "The fans were right." Criticizing the films lack of explaining plot elements to its hackmead storyline and lackluster effort by the actors, he suggested that the film "Might be fun when you're hammered and surrounded by friends. Or suicidal, and need something to push you over the edge."

A Nutshell Review: Dragonball Evolution

[DICK STEEL · 3/10 · 12 March 2009]

Hollywood plundering Japanese pop culture isn't something new. From "Americanizing" television series for the kids from Power Rangers to Ultraman, and adapting famed characters from Japanese film, games and manga to frequent disastrous effect, it still wouldn't stop the studios from going after one property after another. This time round it's the long running Dragonball series, because the assumption is that the built-in fan base would translate to instant dollars at the box office. Not.

You have to give the filmmakers a little bit of credit though, being either foolhardy, or just plain ballsy. It's a given that they cannot condense and distill the rich content into a surprisingly less than 90 minute movie, and live in the hopes of producing a sequel, or to generate a franchise (i.e. don't leave the cinema hall when the end credits start to roll). But what they successfully do, is to super-summarize the entire mythos by throwing out everything except the main gist of the entire manga, making it extremely simplistic in poor lazy-man standards in adaptation.

For the uninitiated, the film would serve as a quick launchpad to the original manga. For those with a wee bit of knowledge of what it's about (like myself), the film just treads along the same lines and doesn't offer you new information. For the fanboys, I guess you'll only get some kicks at seeing some of your favorite characters come alive, only that they look more Caucasian, and have a head full of hair when they're not supposed to (someone forgot to insist that in the contract?) That's all you're gonna get. Period.

As far as film-making and story-telling techniques go, you can see cliché after cliché being thrown at you, with the poorly and cheaply rendered special effects offering no consolation. Justin Chatwin's Goku is your typical teenager who possesses innate potential yet to be realized, and in his frustration he gets treated by peers as a loser geek. He lives with his grandpa Gohan (Randall Duk Kim in stereotypical know-it-all like in Kung Pu Panda), and develops a crush on school hottie Chi Chi (Jamie Chung). Goku's calling in life is to prevent an apocalypse from happening with the return of chief cardboard baddie Lord Piccolo (an instant shoo-in as one of the worst cinematic villains, ever!) and his temporary sidekick Mai (Eriko Tamura) who attempt to collect 7 dragonballs to fulfill an ancient myth. And of course Goku needs a Fellowship, in the form of irritating tech-wizard Bulma (Emmy Rossum last seen in the sinker Poseidon), mercenary Yum Cha (Joon Park who probably copied Rain's uninspiring cinematic turn in Speed Racer to a T) and Chow Yun-Fat the biggest name of them all here trying his darnest best to act cute as Master Roshi, who imparts skills in double quick time to Goku.

Speaking of time, or the lack thereof, everything is compressed. From two weeks to two days and the day of the blood moon shielding the yellow sun (OK so I made that up), everything moves at so fast a pace, that all you get are cheesy lines of dialog, and an excuse to paste some action sequences together. And James Wong certainly can't direct action (despite being at the helm of Jet Li's The One, which was of course bland and bad), opting to pay homage to Zack Snyder's slow-mo technique, and midway changing the style to having the camera being too close to the action, in the dark, coupled with quick MTV cuts that you don't get to see a thing.

And the rush job just doesn't stop at the narrative or the action. Special effects wise, they look really cheap, and I wonder whether Producer Stephen Chow would roll his eyes at what would be extremely pale when put side by side with his Kung Fu Hustle done many years ago. Ayumi Hamasaki's contribution of the theme song Rule sounded really bad as well (I may get flak from her fans), and I guess having some Asian participation doesn't legitimize what is essentially a poorly done movie. Not even Chow Yun-Fat's star status could save this, and you wonder what figured when this is the movie that he gave up Red Cliff for.

This is basically a movie that only children below the age of 5 will enjoy tremendously, despite having to see 6 half-balls, contributed courtesy of the 3 lead female characters, being continuously flashed on screen, thanks to some neck plunging wardrobe (where's that malfunction when you need one?) Totally bland and really uninteresting, I would suggest sticking to the manga instead.

Is a shame what is done to great stories/franchises.

[supermankelly · 31 March 2009]

It gets done wrong then have to wait another 10 years for someone to come and do it right. This has potential to be a great movie and introduce a whole new audience to DragonBall. Characters need to be older, as we all know Goku as a father not a high school kid. Not point starting the character young to build up to future movies if the first movie is at risk of flopping.

I'm sure will be a nice movie, but nice movies don't get remembered and turned into sequels. Well that is not totally true, for some reason some people tend to make average movies into less than average sequels. But also the reverse does happen. If this flops for obvious reasons they may come back with a improved sequel the way the fans want it.

www.dragonballz-themovie.com

Not the best movie but not worse either

[asim_ali-101 · 8/10 · 19 March 2009]

I have been waiting to watch this movie since I heard that 20th century fox were making this it.

I didn't really care about who they cast in the movie or who was directing the movie, all I really cared about was that this movie should not be disappointing and after seeing the movie for myself and not judging it by what other people have said in their reviews I can say it's a wicked movie.

There are some points in the movie that I can say need to be redone but overall the story was catchy and the action even if it was short it was good. The most disappointing thing about the film was the misuse of the oozaru and the short timing of the end battle between goku and piccolo.

Overall the movie was good and it kept me entertained and still I think it was worth the wait the movie soundtracks and music are excellent and I think the cast did a pretty good job playing their characters, the best performance has to be Chow Yun Fat, he did a awesome job as master roshi and roshi kept me laughing quite a bit and also Joon Park did a wicked job as Yamcha, he sounds just like the cartoon character which was amazing. Justin Chatwin try to do his best as goku and he did make me laugh a bit but he was just too serious and the Goku I know is funny and carefree.

Emmy Rossum and Jamie Chung were good as Bulma and Chi - Chi and James Marster made a wicked piccolo but his time in the movie was short and kind of reminded me of Vemon's amount of time in spider-man 3 but piccolo was another good thing about the movie.

This movie is not going to be the best movie of the year or win any Oscars but it's still fun to watch and enjoyable and I seriously recommend this movie to true dragonball fans who actually know the meaning of adaptation and don't mind a bit of change in something you liked for years.

My rating 8 out of 10

It is purely for entertainment but even that it can disappoint.

[helmutty · 6/10 · 14 March 2009]

The runtime is 1 hour 26 minutes. It is undeniably short and so you cannot expect some fantastic plot but non-stop action and some good action scenes. I would say that Dragonball has achieved being a mindless flick with non-stop action. But I must say I am a little disappointed with the action scenes and how short it is. First thing, the action and fighting scenes-they are messy and short. One fighting scene runs about 3-4 minute and they are not that fantastic. There is nothing special about the fighting scenes as some of them look messy. Even the final battle is short. I feel that it is quite short and if it is true that it cost US$100 million, it is very expensive. The special effect is not that awesome that makes you go "Wow!".

The story: Yeah, as expected, the story is truly simple for all ages to understand. The strong point of Dragonball is supposed to be the fighting scenes but they are disappointing. The story is about Goku going on an adventure to find the seven hidden dragon balls after his grandfather tells him to before his death. From there, he needs to find master Roshi and some others company them on his quest to find the dragon balls before evil force finds them. As usual, Brian Tyler 's music is good and epic. His music makes the film more watchable.

Overall: Kids will like this non-stop action adventure and the adults, depending on their taste, might also enjoy it. I have to say that I don't know much about Dragonball so I enjoyed the fun ride. Those looking for a mindless flick, may be interested in it. Those who hate plots that are lame and messy fight scenes, this may not suit you. It is slightly better than average.

Even those who aren't fans of the original cartoon will hate this.

[Rectangular_businessman · 1/10 · 10 July 2010]

"Dragonball Evolution" must be one of the most pathetic movies ever made. I wasn't expecting this to be like the anime series, I only was expecting this to be remotely good and yet even on this it fails miserably. "Dragonball Evolution" combines a lot of predictable clichés and stereotypes from every single fantasy movie from the recent years with terrible performances and horrible, really horrible special effects.

No only none of the characters were remotely likable (If the idea was to attract a new audience changing the personality of the characters of the anime show, it fails mostly because this new vision of these "original" characters is based on the most uninspiring and bland kind of stereotypes)

"Dragonball Evolution" is the perfect example of everything what is wrong with live action adaptations of cartoons: Neither the story or the characters have at least a slight resemblance to the source material, the visual effects are extremely poor, the script is incredibly stupid and childish. And the worst part is that not even remotely entertaining to watch, being one of the most boring, generic-looking movies I've seen in my entire life.

"Dragonball Evolution" is like a combination of the Power Rangers and High School Musical. It sucks. If you like the anime series "Dragonball", avoid this. And if you don't I still recommend you to avoid this horrible film because is boring, dumb and poorly made.

0/10 (And I would rate with a negative score if I could)

Worst adaptation ever

[logenbacsi · 1/10 · 17 March 2009]

This movie was utter crap. It had nearly no connection to the source material at all. The directing was bad, the acting was bad, and the effects.. pf were utterly cheese. 100 million US$ my *****. This movie looks like it was made by no more then 10 mills. Where did the money? Or there wasn't any money from the beginning, and you're just using this movie as a money laundry? Copying Uwe Boll too much? Whoever gave the changes in this movie a green-light was damn stupid. The whole thing's cliché, and relies again on the "Heroes Journey". I'd really wish Joseph Campbell would have never done any research on myths and archetypes, because it's his fault now, that every movie is the same nowadays.

This movie is really BAD. Even if you never knew anything about Dragonball (impossible) don't watch it, it'll still suck. Even the creator of the original manga (A.T.) said after watching this movie, that he's shocked at how bad it is.

Thank you Hollywood, you just bombed my childhood. Now I know how Hiroshima feels.

So bad it's... well... bad, really

[Meven_Stoffat · 1/10 · 19 March 2009]

As you may or may not already know, Dragonball Evolution is officially leaked online. Directed by James Wong, the film was released a month early in Asia, and even watching the leaked version is even a waste of time. I watched the leaked version and even then I wanted my money back.

So pretty much we see Goku on his 18th birthday, and he gets the dragonball. At school, he fantasizes about Chi Chi eating strawberries in science class (WTF???), opens every locker with his powers, and a whole bunch of other crap. At Chi Chi's party, he fights with these random guys and gets in, when Piccolo, who looks like a potato, destroys Goku's house and kills his Grandfather, and this leads Goku on some quest to get all 7 dragonballs.

This movie is a pure suck-fest from beginning to end. Watch as Goku fantasizes about Chi Chi eating strawberries! Gawk at the lame performances from such lame stars as Justin Chatwin (who is ESPECIALLY bad), Chow-Yun Fat, and others! Laugh out loud at the bad dialog! Cringe at the cringe-inducing special effects! Watch as the writers get characters wrong! Or don't. Just spare yourself really.

Apparently the official American version has 22 extra minutes of footage. But at this point I don't care, because this movie is already enough torture. What are the going to add? A Bulma/Goku sex scene? A scene where Goku masturbates with that Chi Chi fantasy in his head? A scene where Piccolo turns into a woman and gives birth to a ninja turtle??? A whole subplot involving Piccolo and a sex change operation? With that said, please don't watch this movie. If you have to so desperately watch it, just watch the bootleg version.

:*(

[ashtree80 · 1/10 · 29 December 2009]

Yes, as soon as I heard about this movie, I was convinced it would be horrible. I avoided it like the plague. Finally, I wanted to test "just how awful is awful?".

Upon watching the first 45 seconds of this, I am convinced that it is likely to be the worst "movie" I have ever seen. Next time I want to play the "how awful is awful?" game, somebody please stop me. Somebody have mercy and take my life before I make anymore poor life decisions of this magnitude.

A load of old Dragonballs

[Ali_John_Catterall · 1/10 · 7 April 2009]

It must be a real drag being a Jungian archetype. Aside from the inconvenience of possessing a thousand faces, imagine minding your own business, practicing judo with some wise and wily sage, when you're suddenly handed a magic sword or glowing swishy stick or cosmic catapult and tipped headlong into some damn-fool quest to go and rescue a princess and kill your dad - no, hang on, wrong shrink - or confront some Dark Lord (who may actually turn out to be your dad, bummer), while also confronting the darkness within your own soul (look harder, not using the recycling bin doesn't count).

And the real bore of it all is, the thing that makes you want to stick your arms in a mincer, is that you know exactly what's going to happen next, which charming rogue you're going to meet on the road, which cuckolding temptress you're going to wind up married to for the next 100 years, and precisely which one of your battle-hungry, blood-crazed stepsons is going to do you in with a pillow when you're no longer fit to preside over a model railway set.

The story is old, but it goes on. And it's always a pleasure when it's well told. But when plots and characters are as insultingly stock as they are in Dragonball Evolution, you start fervently praying for a bit of Jodorowsky-style subversion, possibly involving the heroine, the Dark Lord, a sackful of syringes and a malnourished donkey called Carlos. This resembles a fever dream you might have had after slipping into an E-number-aggravated blood sugar crash while watching The Star Wars Trilogy. Dragonball Evolution is so derivative, such a bare-faced rip-off of George Lucas' pension, that it actually seems completely pointless to pick holes in it. You might as well just attack the originals for their myriad faults and get two birds with one stone.

"In an ancient time, Earth was nearly destroyed…" begins the ponderous voice-over."Not by man, but by Gods from the sky..." Most dramas smuggle their exposition in via the dialogue. This one just ram raids it out of the store. For what it's worth, the story involves a young hero called Goku, played by the Westerner Justin Chatwin (slightly creepily playing an 18 year-old at age 26) who embarks on a quest for the titular world-saving Dragon Balls after his martial artist grandpa Gohan is killed off by the evil Lord Piccolo (Marsters, resembling an over-sized Jawa with food poisoning). Will Goku manage to harness the powerful force called Ki and confront his own werewolf side? Find Master Roshi - who trained grandpa in turn? Defeat Piccolo - probably the only villain named after a small flute? And win the love of ass-kicking classmate Chi Chi? Seriously?

There's probably a point to be made about the eternal exchange of cultural currency; Japan wresting back characters and plot lines from Lucas, then flogging them to the West again; Eastern aesthetics filtered through American sensibilities. But frankly, that's just the way the world works. The good news is this is only 84 minutes long. And if they knocked another 80 minutes off, it would be just about perfect.

Student Film

[filmmanic99 · 1/10 · 13 March 2009]

The entire assembly of the film crew and casting is WRONG (excluding the catering and the grip and electric guys). Asia has the first priority to watch such a bad film done by JAMES WONG. Why is he still getting work from Hollywood anyway? "The One" was badly done and James is just the worse director ever, I tell ya, he is walking on thin ice in the film industry. He has absolutely no vision of this film. Who hired him anyway? This film is so amateur done that it looks like student film. I can't believe 20th Century Fox distribute a student film worldwide. Btw, did they just put Stehpen Chow's name as the producer as a marketing strategy for Asia? The film ended with a hint of a sequel, and if it does, it will most likely end up re-shooting the entire film (remember of The Hulk). King Piccolo lacks of drive for him to destroy the world. Plot is flat, character drives are lame. Dialogs are stereotype. Ben Ramsey did a poor job as a screenwriter, he is lack of experience to write such an epic movie.

Casting: God damn it, wrong cast dude! Carla Hool, please go back home and do some home work first! Who hired the casting department? I recall the same casting director did the Forbidden Kingdom also cast this movie -- Popping AuYeung. She sucks! Did such a bad job casting in Forbbiden Kingdom and in Dragon Ball. I wonder why is she still surviving in the industry at all. Jamie Chung tries too hard to be cute, and she is ugly. Master Mutaito is a black guy? Emmy Rossum was great in The Day After Tomorrow but not in this movie. I can assure you that it's not really her fault, James just doesn't know what he was doing. Eriko Tamura as Mai is just a redundant character, the wardrobe department tries very hard to dress her up sexy while she is not. By the way, her boobs didn't override her bad acting and ugliness. She must have missed Acting 101 class.

Visual Effect: At some point of the movie, when Guko turns into a gorilla the visual effect was so poorly done that it looks some what like "Rubber Chicken". Did they slip in few shots done by stop motion? The face of Gozoru looks like it was done in After Effects, it doesn't look like 3D at all!! First scene of the film, Goku was training with Gohan, the matte painting of the house was so badly done that it looks 2D (cardboard stand) in the background. Blue / Green screen spill was all over, color correction sucks. Visual effect was done much like fresh grad student level. Hollywood have done so much super hero movies in the recent years, and I think the producers just hire the wrong bunch to do such a visual effects intensive film. I believe that Fox knew this film wouldn't go anywhere so they cut budget from hiring the good guys to work on this film!!!

Art Design / Production Design My recommendation is to get Stephen Scott, Simon Lamont and the bunch who did Hellboy to work on DragonBall. The original DragonBall story heavily involves with aliens and action, and I believe that they are the right group of guys to do this film. Their creature designs and makeup fits in this category. Piccolo looks like alien from Mars, one of those "Mars Attack" films from the 60s. Costumn in the entire film doesn't match the theme at all, looks like they shop wardrobe from Wal-Mart. The story will be more interesting if it were to take place more into the future (like in the movie Minority Report). The location of Master Roshi's house is totally mismatch to the surrounding backdrop. The matte painting of the city lights and buildings doesn't fit into the picture at all. It is like cut and paste without considering the style, time and place between Roshi's house and the city backdrop.

Stunts / Action Choreography: Poorly done dude! One of the marketing factor of Dragonball is the fighting style and its creative art of fighting sequence. Whatever James did, it looks worse than Street Fighter done by Steven De Souza back in 1994. Yeah, Van Damme could've star in this Dragonball movie. The "ki" effect is all over the place,the establish shots of the fight covered up by "ki" effect and I couldn't even locate the characters on the screen. They add to much vapor on the "ki" effect.

Conclusion: If you want to have endless conversation with your friends about how bad this film is, then go watch it. I believe that Hollywood is running out of idea and beginning to tackle Asia stories. But studio got to have more faith in selling these stories with huge fans around the world: Dragonball, Akira and whatnot. If you cut back the budget, it will end up with a disaster like what James Wong did with this movie! Consider Matrix, Wachowski Bros did a total ripe off from a Japanese Animation "Ghost in the Shell". Look what they can achieve with the budget they've got. Of course, skills is also a factor and they have better vision than James as well.

Please re-shoot this FILM!!! I can assure you that all the fans worldwide is looking forward to a re-shoot with different Above the Line and casts

Stuck that Ki and that Kame Hame Ha up your butt Goku

[linkinpark822002 · 1/10 · 14 March 2009]

i saw this with my friend on premiere day in Malaysia. I was a fan of the comics when i was still a kid. when i saw the first few clips and trailers on youtube i knew this movie would suck. Who in the right mind would cast Chow Yun Fatt as Roshi and a Caucasian as Goku???? But in the end i gave it a chance and i told myself, "Hey, let's have some campy fun and not try to think too much." As soon as the movie starts, and the first line uttered by Gohan, i wanted to leave the cinema hall. In fact after 15 minutes, i wanted the movie to end!!! 90 minutes was just too long. I felt as though it was 3 hours.

i'm not trying to be a hater but the problem is that this movie is just too f*cked up. It looked like an amateur movie made by a new director. The dialogues were stupid the acting was horrendous and the plot was terrible. There was no character development at all and they try to make the fight scenes look cool with the slow motion but it's god damn lame. and the jokes fall flat. worse part was the way they try to work out a love story between Bulma and Yamcha within 15 minutes of knowing each other.

The Kame Hame Ha scene turned into a cheesy high school love story. I was twitching the moment i heard the lines being uttered by Goku to Chi Chi while he was training his Kame Hame Ha. In fact, i twitched every time a line is being uttered by the actors and actresses.

The Climax was downright disappointing with the gigantic monkey you see in the comics look like a guy wearing a rubber gorilla suit. The special effects throughout the movie looked like as though it was from a cheap telemovie. and the Dragon at the end was so laughable that it looked like the Dragon from a rice advertisement in Malaysia.

My final say, don't watch this film ever! Not even on rental. not worth your time. If i was to give a rating i would give it a negative but IMDb doesn't allow me to do that.

Don't you just hate Hollywood?

[trevor-johnson · 1/10 · 24 March 2009]

From looking at some of the reviews on here, I will keep mine simple as people seem obsessed one way or another. I am reviewing this film on the credits.

1. Relation to the original series. 2. Quality of script 3. quality of actors/actresses/acting 4. quality of effects 5. Final product.

This film bears two relations to the original. The characters and the Dragonballs. There is nothing else to link the two. This is so sad when you consider how much they had to work with and all they could produce was this. The characters also bear little resemblance to their anime predecessors. None of them do what they are supposed to do, except Chi Chi, who didn't do much anyway. Where's Roshi's turtle shell. Why does Bulma carry several fully automatic weapons? And why is Yamcha now a ladies man? To their credit though, Roshi's behaviour soon after he appears is very accurate even if it is short lived.

The script for this film is its downfall. It's just awful. The writers have tried to fit too much into a short period of time. This film needed to be 2.5 to 3 hours long to even come close to allowing all the characters to be fleshed out. Attention should have been paid to Transformers when they were making this film. If you want to make a film based on a TV series, as those who watched it, not a bunch of suits that are paid to watch it and come up with a story. Many people who enjoyed the show could have given suggestions throughout the whole movie making experience.

AS bad as the film was, it doesn't take anything away from the actors themselves. They did the best they could with the tools they had. If you ask a builder to build you a house out of sticks, don't complain when it falls over.

This film had all the effects of an 80's movie. Think of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the scene where the Freddie battles the kid in the wheelchair. That's the level of effects in this film. And I will leave the dragon, Shenron, so you come to your own conclusions. I don't want to seem prejudiced.

This film lands not just way off the mark for a spin off movie, it's in another continent. They should never have made it if it was going to be so lack lustred. It could have been done with a comedy element, which would have saved it, but no. They even try to throw in romance, but you have only seen the characters for an hour so who cares. Why so many inconsistencies from the original anime series? For example, Roshi does not live on an island. All these little details could have been included with another hour of film time. No one wants to watch an 88 minute film nowadays. Its just not value for money. Some may think that 1 out of 10 is harsh, but when they made such a hash of what could have been another Transformers, its all it deserves.

Failing to impress

[harry_tk_yung · 12 March 2009]

Ignorance can at times be a blessing. Knowing absolutely nothing about the comics from which "Dragonball evolution" is adapted, I am spared the disappointment many hard core fans are already bracing themselves for. But that isn't enough to salvage this movie for me.

It is getting more and more difficult for movies in this genre to impress. Compared with the very similar "Forbidden Kingdom" last year, Dragonball is like a pale shadow. The fatal flaw is an extremely weak story line. There is nothing in the banal good-against-evil plot to excite, because the movie makers don't seem to be interested in enriching the story with any amount of detail to give it a life of its own. The action and special effect are barely passable. There are a few feeble laughs, generated mainly by Emmy Rossum and CHOW Yun-fat. There is one missed opportunity, an identity twist that could have been worked to generate good dramatic effects. What finally hit the screen comes almost like an after thought and is tossed away just as quickly.

This movie looks like a half-hearted, half-baked amateurish project. The biggest laugh is unabashed "hook" injected into the ending credit roll, showing you that the villain is apparently not dead. Thank you very much. I pass the sequel. But I very seriously doubts that we'll ever see one.

Absolutely very good film

[tsmrushhour · 10/10 · 7 June 2017]

Why are people complaining and giving it horrible ratings? I love the fact that I can watch my favourite anime on my flat screen mirror!

Love the animations and fighting scenes, it's almost as if I can feel the pain he is feeling. But that might just be because I'm getting whipped by my dad.

Absolutely love this movie

this movie is good for non db fanatics

[docThugx · 6/10 · 7 March 2010]

This was a fine movie. it wasn't great. Before I rented it I read some reviews and after I watched it I thought I should post that it wasn't that bad. Some die hard DB fans wrote they hated it. Wasn't mad that I spent a dollar to watch it or that it took 2 hours of my life. One of my favorite movies was transformers. I am a gamer but not a db fan. This movie is good one to watch on HBO or rent for a dollar at the r box. If there is nothing on then I would watch this by myself late at night. Don't think I would watch it more than 2 or 3 times though. Not one to put in your collection of DVD's. If you have kids they might like it, there is no blood or naked girls. a little violent but nothing we haven't seen in other fight movies or game movies. I liked the special effects. It wasn't too long. You don't need to know the story to like the movie. The acting wasn't too bad and the girls were cute.

Stomped All Over My Childhood Hero & Fantasies..!!

[GirishGowda · 1/10 · 30 March 2010]

Dragonball Evolution was one of the films which I was terribly excited about. Goku had been one of my heroes all through my childhood. I used to hog the TV whenever it came and didn't even leave the TV for my parents to watch their favourite shows.

Goku is humanity personified. He was never a boy who would go after the girl, rather he would go after the bad guys without a damn care in the world for his own safety. He was the reason why I stood up to the bullies in school and never backed down even when I would get beaten up by 4 guys at once. I always thought in my mind that if Goku could be honest, innocent and proud of his actions, so would I be. That was until my 17th year. Then the need to fit in and be cool with my peers when in college took over and all the ideals I had crashed down one by one. But, now I think back, just 4 years down the line, I am more proud of who I was rather than who I am now. That says a great deal about DRAGONBALL - the cartoon. It always stressed about the importance of love in friendships and not exclusively about love with the opposite sex. Of course, there was Master Roshi, the pervert, but it never played a part in how I grew up or how Goku developed. So, to see all my beliefs and ideals get destroyed in the film EVOLUTION, I was heart-broken. I literally wanted to strangle every damn person involved in this film (except for Emmy Rossum. She can do no wrong). The special effects are a joke. Seriously who would spend $100 million on this worthless piece of junk? I'm only glad that I didn't pay for this when it released. It was my friend's treat last year. I recently joined IMDb and had to write a review for this horrible movie.

Goku never had teenage angst or crushes. It was fate that he got married to Chi Chi. I've said enough about Goku, there are his best friends Bulma and Krillin as well. In the movie (can I even call this 80 minute headache a movie??!!), Krillin wasn't even there and Bulma was the only one who got close to the actual character. Of course, in the anime also she falls for Yamcha immediately, but in the film, Yamcha's character was dumb. Chi Chi was a joke. Literal translation of Chi Chi is milk or breasts. The whole film looked like it was aimed at kids below the age of 15 and the people more than that age who have not matured past staring at the different breasts at display here. Goku's fantasy of Chi Chi eating a strawberry looked like a sex fantasy. It was disgusting. The story and some characters aren't even in the 400 episode long saga, which is divided into 3 sub-parts..!! The Kamehameha blast was ridiculous. It stomped on my childhood hero and fantasies. I wish they would re-do the whole thing. This is a hateful, irritable movie. Why couldn't they make this like the Batman, Ironman, The Hulk or Spiderman?!! This deserves -100 on 10.. But what to do IMDb doesn't let us give less than 1. So, a 1 on 10 for the actors. They couldn't do much with the terrible script here.

1/10