Dragon Ball: Evolution
I can't imagine anyone looking at the trailers, production stills, movie posters, or even the word "Evolution" in the title could possibly think that the final film was going to be anything other than an insulting waste of time. Still, there were a handful of promising little signs that it could still succeed on some level. IMDB says that Akira Toriyama is credited only with writing the manga, but I could swear he was producing the film. Even if he isn't, Stephen Chow is a producer, and that should at least mean that even if the movie throws out everything that anyone has ever liked about Dragon Ball, at least this new version will at least be potentially entertaining.
Right?
RIGHT?!
Of course not. DB:E not only discards all but the largest of details from the original, but it does so to make room for some of the most truly insipid crap anyone has ever bothered to film. The story is astoundingly generic, the acting shifts from "why is the camera still rolling?" to "oh god please just shut these people up", but I think the real problem with DB:E is pacing. They have less than 90 minutes to take Goku from an awkward high school kid (yeah) to ultimate warrior, and there is no time for dawdling, most of the characters, or really much of anything important. So much happens so fast that it's difficult to consider any particular scene any more or less important than the one that preceeded it. Goku's training is done almost literally on the drive to the final showdown. The villain has less screen time than Malkovich in Eragon, and really, once a movie has been compared to Eragon, it's all over.
There are a few touches that should appeal to the fan. Goku is referred to as Son Goku once, and he wears a blue and orange hoodie, and I think someone mentions a monkey at some point. Bulma has blue highlights and Yamucha is a fugly Korean boy. Well, I guess that's not such a nod to the original, but I guess rather than scarring up an attractive guy, they just found some poor dude born under the ugly tree and called it even. Roshi is a pervert exactly twice, and capsules really can do anything.
To a certain extent, all this movie really needed to do was give some sort of approximation of what could be enjoyable about the Dragon Ball series. They could have a cool fight or spend half of the movie leveling up or put in something kind of funny or be cute or just do SOMETHING. There are some fights and some loser-becomes-winner gratification bits that should make nerdly DB fans feel good about themselves. There are girls who have guns and girls who make Kung-Fu kicks and also kiss nerdly boys, and there's maybe a car chase and a plane crash in there, too, but I really don't recall. Probably not a plane crash. Anyway, I like to think that I'm aware of when I'm being pandered to, but I have to admit that I cannot recall a movie that has ever done so with such a complete misunderstanding of what might make me like it. It's like having your grandma buy you a video game. God bless her for trying, and she has the basic idea, but aside from a stroke of luck, there's no way she's actually going to bring something you'll enjoy. That's the bottom line, I believe: this movie is a video game your grandma bought you.
Also, seeing Chow Yun Fat yell "I AM MUTEN ROSHI! HA HA HA" is more than a little dis-heartening.
11 comments:
i little part of me died on the inside. not because like dragon ball. but because it was made into a movie.
sigh
It's almost a straight-to-video quality production except it's more like straight-to-ytmnd.com.
1) Is there a Kamehameha?
One of the problems I have with this film, of the many problems, is that Goku, in Dragonball, is in a constant state of training since ever. He's a optomistic workable guy who is always willing to accept any challenge. I assume, from the trailers, that Son Gohan in this movie is more akin to Peter Parker in Spiderman 3.
Also, Bulma didn't use guns in the manga.
I hate this movie on principle. So there is more into which I could go in. But I think my primary question to ask of MA17 is, "DID YOU ACTUALLY PAY MONEY TO WATCH THIS?!"
There is Kamehameha. Oddly enough, the kame part of kamehameha means turtle, and though the orange gi Goku eventually gets does have the turtle kanji on it, there is really no other mention of turtles, turtle houses, turtle hermits, or ancient fucking sea turtles that I can recall.
Goku learns a Shadow Crane Strike or something similar, and I'm wondering if that's a nod to Crane Hermit. In true awful movie form, the nod really only serves to accentuate how utterly different the movie is.
I don't think it's inaccurate to call movie Goku Peter Parker.
And I took gun-toting Bulma to be a selective hybrid of Bulma/Launch.
I did pay to go see it, actually. I had to! The theater was empty except for me, so I didn't get to hear the scattered groans when Bulma announced proudly "MY NAME IS BULMA BRIEFS". I have to give them some credit for keeping all of the goofy names, I suppose.
Stephen Chow was payin' the rent on this one.
As was Chow Yun Fat and Marsters.
Correction: Kamehameha was actually the name of the unifier of the Hawaiian Islands. King Kamehameha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamehameha_I
I did not know that.
Very interesting.
from now on, I'm using paronomasia.
If only to be a dick.
You will be the baron-o-masia.
They combine Bulma and Launch?
...
NO! NO! to that!
There's no sneezing involved, so it's not a real combination, but she's all inventing stuff and also shooting stuff, and there sure isn't any Launch around, so meh.
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