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Dragonball Evolution
To date, the Dragon Ball franchise, now in its twenty fifth year, has
produced a number of hit TV animations, a gigantic merchandising ring,
and countless spinoff comics and novels. The conglomerate has now added
a Hollywood live action flick to the list with Dragonball Evolution.
The story traces the origins of the Dragonballs and the evil Namekian
Piccolo (James Marsters) who seeks to posses them in a attempt to
destroy the world. His plot is foiled though, by a order of monks who
imprison Piccolo so as to save the world. After two thousand years
though, Piccolo escapes and is once again on the hunt for the legendary
Dragonballs.
At the same time martial arts student Boku (Justin Chatwin) get given a
Dragonball by his grandfather Gohan (Randall Duk Kim). Off to celebrate
his birthday, Goku heads out to a party that night and aims to meet up
with his high school crush Chi-Chi (Jamie Chung). After a slight mishap
involving some bullies, Goku returns home to find that Piccolo had
traced the power of the Dragonball to his home and destroyed it, leaving
his grandfather dead. Hell bent on revenge and a need to save the earth,
Goku joins forces with his Grandfathers martial arts mentor Master Roshi
(Chow Yun-Fat) who possesses another Dagonball. But with time running
out, they need to beat Piccolo to the remaining Dragonballs, or earth
will be doomed again.
Dragonball Evolution has a few strange characteristics about it. It's
obviously aimed at the core Dragonball fan base, as they've tried to
stick to the main storylines of the Dragonball saga while still trying
too put a nice Hollywood gleam onto it. As well as this they haven't
really committed to a Eastern or Western aim. This has left the movie
in some sort of limbo where some characters are of Asian descent, some
of Caucasian, it never really clarifies where any locations are, its a
wierd blend of reality and the Dragonball universe. Because of this fact
you never really get a connection with anything in the movie and cannot
relate to the characters as you aren't properly introduced. The aim of
'spreading the elements thin so that everyone gets entertained' has
failed miserably, and appears to have just made everyone lose interest.
The acting and dialogue is slightly kitsch, but this can be forgiven
considering that carries over from the original cartoon series. Probably
the greatest saving grace for the movie is the fight scenes, they are
action packed and contain some nice wire work, mainly from wire master
Chow Yun-Fat. But then again even they can be a bit too much as the
constant scene changing can be a touch disorientating.
Evolution will need to be forgiven, by fans, and the movie going public,
it was a brave attempt, but it failed. Hardcore fans of the Dragonball
universe may even be better off just leaving this feature alone until
someone else takes the helm and commits to a solid story and focus, and
perhaps sticking to the DVD special features instead to get your DB
fix.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
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Deleted Scenes
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Goku's Workout: Stunt Work Featurette
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Fox Movie Channel Presents: Making A Scene
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Fox Movie Channel Presents: Life After Film School With Justin
Chatwin
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Gag Reel
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Brian Anthony 'Worked Up' Music Video
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