Dragonball: Evolution [Blu-ray]

When I had first heard of a Dragon Ball live action film, I was stoked. "Finally, I get to see Goku blow s*** up and fight in hyper speed!" The teaser trailer alone had me hyped up! I was wondering how much work they were gonna put in the movie, how cool the effects were gonna be, how amazing the fights would look!.....then the movie came out and was bashed into the ground like cheap five dollar hooker on a bad day. This movie has been nitpicked, bashed, and had been utterly destroyed by everyone, from movie critics to random fanboys and fangirls you find on YouTube, people have been complaining non stop: "They have white people playing as the Dragon Ball characters!" "Piccolo is not green enough!" "It wasn't as fast as the anime!"But is it really that big of a train wreck? Is this movie worthy of putting it on the shelf of s*** movies in between `Street Fighter the Legend of Chun-Li' and `Batman and Robin'?First off, the cast. Why are people making a big deal about this? I mean sure, they could have gotten other actors besides Justin Chatwin for Goku or Jamie Chung for Chi Chi, but they got some pretty good actors to play the part. As for James Marsters, he did a fantastic job as Piccolo being the evil bastard he is (or if you want to get technical, the evil bastard he used to be). As for the race for the characters on Earth, there technically is no race on Earth besides Earthlings or humans. And no, just because Dragon Ball Z was made in Japan doesn't mean that the characters are Japanese as well. That's like saying every character made in the U.S. in Marvel comics are only Caucasian, it makes no sense. Chow Yun Fat did a great job as Master Roshi, it looked like he was haveing fun with it too what with the overacting he did, but that's what made me enjoy it more.Story now, is something to discuss about: Two thousand years ago, the demon Piccolo came to Earth, wreaking havoc with his minion Ozaru. Seven mystics created the Mafuba and thought they sealed him away for eternity. Piccolo breaks free and begins to search for the seven Dragon Balls (each one has stars numbering between one and seven), killing anyone in his way. While that's happening, Goku is given the 4-Star Dragon Ball by his grandfather on his 18th birthday before he goes to high school. Returning home from a party hosted by his crush Chi Chi, Goku finds his home destroyed and his grandfather near death after Piccolo's failed attempt to acquire the Dragonball. Before Gohan dies, he tells Goku to seek out martial arts master Muten Roshi, who has another one of the Dragonballs. Along the way, Goku meets Bulma of the Capsule Corporation, and eventually also meets Yamcha. Together, they try to find all seven Dragon Balls before Piccolo finds them. Now that sounds like a regular plot now doesn't it? Because I really don't know what people are bitching about when it came to the plot. And no, I ain't giving away the ending, you have to watch the movie for that. It's a basic tale of a small band of heroes that meet up under different circumstances and decide to team up to defeat a villain that threatens the entire human race.Martial Arts Choreography is something to talk about. When you watch an episode of either Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, or Dragon Ball GT, you expect fast paced, lighting quick punches and kicks and waves upon waves of destructive energy being fired from a persons hand, eyes, and even the mouth. In Dragon Ball Evolution, the closest your gonna get to energy shooting is a ball, and the action scenes are not quick like in Dragon Ball, Z, or even GT. That doesn't mean that the fight scenes are horrible. The fight scenes are really good, you can probably compare them to the first Matrix movie when Neo practiced Kung Fu.The special affects are nothing special. They look like something out of an XBOX cutscene. No, not an XBOX 360 cutscene, an XBOX cutscene. They're not bad, but they could have done so much better with the technology we had and still have what with the amount of CGI we have in movies now. Looks like something out of Windows movie maker. But since this movie is entirely a fantasy-scifi-action, I would let it slide for that reason.Being faithful to the source material is fairly tame. I mean yeah, they got the story, the characters, but if your able to get the references like how Gokus hoodie have the same color scene as his Gi in the manga and anime, his hair won't stay down despite putting gel on it, and even having the joke of Master Roshis first name actually being `Master'. If you're like me, you'll like the little things they had as references and will like the things they were able to keep in the movie. My one huge gripe with it are the ways they pronounce Gohans name "Go-han' and not "Go-Haun" and they chant the Kamehameha wrong, being "Kame. Hame. Ha." instead of "Ka. Me. Ha. Me. Ha."Do I recommend this? Yes. Sure, the movie has a s*** tone of nit picky moments in them like the way they pronounce the names and such, but there are a lot of things that are good about this film. Even as a movie by itself and not being based off of Dragon Ball Z or just Dragon Ball, it's really good. This movie is your standard popcorn film.

Justin Chatwin's bad preformance. His acting was really, really bad in many places, literally where he's saying a line just like this: "I...will...avenge...him..."However, if that can be ignored, this is a near perfect adaptation of Dragonball. Despite many complaints about the Low (when did 40 mil become low budget?) budget of the movie, I don't really get it as I don't see the special effects to be any better than the really big budget movies (golden compass comes to mind).And when it comes to the change of characters, I think for some reason people are just not getting it. Those who haven't ever watched Dragonball/Z/GT...I would've wanted to see this movie regardless of that. But for the fans who seem to the biggest bashers...I don't really get it. They haven't been really changed, just combined.For an example, Goku is much more like Gohan later in the series. He is a teenager, doesn't really fit in school, but a girl likes him, etc. All of that is taken from that part of the story. ChiChi is like Chichi but in more ways like Gohan's girlfriend Videl, being a high school student, and being rich, etc, but still being pretty much the strongest woman alive. Yamcha hasn't been changed at all, save different hair color and outfit. Bulma has been made a stronger character, even though in the series she can be a very strong character, just a lot less mature. That is the biggest change in the movie there is.Master Roshi, save the white beard, is the same. He is still a pervert at times and then an actual master of martial arts and a trainer at others.Grandpa Gohan is actually given a part. Isn't that a good thing? And yes, I have seen "Kirate Kid," and I do see the simiarilities of his part there. I do not see anything wrong with taking inspiration from that movie. Wouldn't any trainer who trained a teenage boy all seem like Mr. Miyagi (spelling) from Karate Kid?I've even heard some people complain of why Piccolo was the villian. Ha; this is King Piccolo, whom was originally a villian. And Mai was just an added bonus to make the movie more exciting. She's somewhat based on a woman who served a character who was like a smaller, not very strong villian. But that's not a big change, and she's put in leather instead of an army commando outfit. She gets the power to shapeshift. Whatever...With all that said, the reason why they called it "Dragonball: Evolution" is because it is an evolution of the series, another form as was the change from Dragonball to Dragonball Z, and even then to GT. This is basically number four, and it's really good.As for the movie itself, there are many things you wouldn't have really expected on screen. "SPOILER!" Oozaru is in the movie, also partially based on his GT form as well as his normal form. This is not a massive altering; it's combining elements from different parts.DOing all of this makes the movie very suprising in many places. The acting otherwise is pretty good, like Chun Yo Fat as Master Roshi, and James Marsters as King Piccolo. Emmy Rossum is not the best, but still doesn't a decent job. The other lesser known actors and actresses also did an pretty good job.There is also much dragonball searching, as well as several good battles, including the last one with Goku vs. Piccolo. All of them are good. There are some cool capsule corp vechicles, etc.All in all, this is a very good adaptation. I would give it 10 stars if Justin Chatwin's acting wasn't so bad. He is terrible. If (or do) they make a sequel, he needs to be recast. I think starting there would make more fans happy.So I push it down to 4 stars, though more like 4.5 because it is that well done (I for one am really happy they even made a movie based off the Dragonball Series)that it doesn't make the movie not worth seeing. I reccomend everyone buy this CD, and try to ignore Justin Chatwin's acting and enjoy how good the rest of the movie really is.

Me llego en perfecto estado, buena compra es una película de las viejitas de dragon BALL pero a mi hijo le gusto

This movie is very funny

Sofern man weiß, dass man bei Dragon Ball Evolution einen Trash-Film vor sich hat, ist alles ok. Man sollte nur nicht erwarten, dass man Qualität und Story wie aus dem 80er- oder 90er-Anime geliefert bekommt. Als Trash-Film aber ganz ok. Und als Erinnerung daran, wie man den damals im Kino gesehen hat.

With many popular franchises, Hollywood somehow manages to get it's grubby hands on it and 9 out 10 times we get a horrible confused mess. Dragonball Evolution is no exception.My first problem is with the actual movie title. Why Evolution? Why couldn't it have just been called Dragonball? The fact that this first movie has got a subtitle suggests it's a sequel, but it's obviously not. I guess it would have made too much sense to call it Dragonball!The story sees young martial arts whiz Goku begin a journey to find the mysterious and powerful dragonballs before the maniacal Namek Piccollo can get to them. Once all 7 have been collected, a dragon is summoned that will grant one perfect wish. If you are familiar with Akira Toriyama's manga and anime versions of this then this you will know that this is the basic underlying premise for the series. However, it is is the main premise for the movie.Overall this is one disappointing movie, it's not even so bad that it's funny, it's just plain bad. Why they hired Justin Chatwin is a mystery to me. Surely they should have gone for a bigger guy, more muscular guy seeing as Goku is meant to be the most powerful warrior in the universe. Chatwin's small frame and wooden acting makes it evident that he was a bad choice for the role. James Marster's as Piccolo isn't too bad but we hardly get to see him in the movie. And when we do, he's either talking about the dragonballs or out finding the dragonballs. Certain cliches in this movie remind me of the new Sam Raimi Spiderman movies, with Goku being an underdog who is picked on in school, a bit like peter parker. However, unlike the awesome Spiderman movies, Dragonball falls short in the fact that there is no chemistry between any of the characters, and Piccolo seems like a 100% baddie bad guy which is frankly quite boring. If you think back to Spiderman, the villains were interesting and each had motives and a personality, which often created morally grey villains that were entertaining, memorable and more importantly - believable. This should have been the same with Piccolo as he is a classic character of Japanese pop culture. Yet this pitiful effort of bringing him to life on the big screen is one of the main reasons this movie fails. And OMG Yamcha...his actor takes BAD acting to the next level...WOW!Action scenes were okay but I felt like I'd seen it all before. There wern't really any instances where I felt impressed or shocked by any of the action scenes. Although I did feel a twinge of happiness with the final showdown wich includes the auras and special moves from the series which are actually recreated nicely for this live action outing. That, to me was the highlight of the movie.You may think that I am slightly biased as I am a fan of the series however, I saw this movie with an open mind and put myself in the shoes of newbie to the franchise. However, this didn't alter my opinion. The movie is very cliched and very shallow. The movie feels extremely hollow with very little substance behind the characters. Like I said before, the basic premise of the dragon ball series was a base for the characters, plot and action; but unfortunately the movie could not pull off any of these three successfully, therefore resulting in a boring movie.Whereas the series triumphed, this movie will soon be forgotten and will sink in to the back of our memories with the many other below average anime/game movie conversions. Apparantly, Dragonball is planned to be a trilogy of movies, but after watching this one, I wont be as eager to watch the sequels. Overall, this movie is disapointing if you are a fan but more importantly it is a bad movie in general which should have, and could have been so much better.

With many popular franchises, Hollywood somehow manages to get it's grubby hands on it and 9 out 10 times we get a horrible confused mess. Dragonball Evolution is no exception.My first problem is with the actual movie title. Why Evolution? Why couldn't it have just been called Dragonball? The fact that this first movie has got a subtitle suggests it's a sequel, but it's obviously not. I guess it would have made too much sense to call it Dragonball!The story sees young martial arts whiz Goku begin a journey to find the mysterious and powerful dragonballs before the maniacal Namek Piccollo can get to them. Once all 7 have been collected, a dragon is summoned that will grant one perfect wish. If you are familiar with Akira Toriyama's manga and anime versions of this then this you will know that this is the basic underlying premise for the series. However, it is is the main premise for the movie.Overall this is one disappointing movie, it's not even so bad that it's funny, it's just plain bad. Why they hired Justin Chatwin is a mystery to me. Surely they should have gone for a bigger guy, more muscular guy seeing as Goku is meant to be the most powerful warrior in the universe. Chatwin's small frame and wooden acting makes it evident that he was a bad choice for the role. James Marster's as Piccolo isn't too bad but we hardly get to see him in the movie. And when we do, he's either talking about the dragonballs or out finding the dragonballs. Certain cliches in this movie remind me of the new Sam Raimi Spiderman movies, with Goku being an underdog who is picked on in school, a bit like peter parker. However, unlike the awesome Spiderman movies, Dragonball falls short in the fact that there is no chemistry between any of the characters, and Piccolo seems like a 100% baddie bad guy which is frankly quite boring. If you think back to Spiderman, the villains were interesting and each had motives and a personality, which often created morally grey villains that were entertaining, memorable and more importantly - believable. This should have been the same with Piccolo as he is a classic character of Japanese pop culture. Yet this pitiful effort of bringing him to life on the big screen is one of the main reasons this movie fails. And OMG Yamcha...his actor takes BAD acting to the next level...WOW!Action scenes were okay but I felt like I'd seen it all before. There wern't really any instances where I felt impressed or shocked by any of the action scenes. Although I did feel a twinge of happiness with the final showdown wich includes the auras and special moves from the series which are actually recreated nicely for this live action outing. That, to me was the highlight of the movie.You may think that I am slightly biased as I am a fan of the series however, I saw this movie with an open mind and put myself in the shoes of newbie to the franchise. However, this didn't alter my opinion. The movie is very cliched and very shallow. The movie feels extremely hollow with very little substance behind the characters. Like I said before, the basic premise of the dragon ball series was a base for the characters, plot and action; but unfortunately the movie could not pull off any of these three successfully, therefore resulting in a boring movie.Whereas the series triumphed, this movie will soon be forgotten and will sink in to the back of our memories with the many other below average anime/game movie conversions. Apparantly, Dragonball is planned to be a trilogy of movies, but after watching this one, I wont be as eager to watch the sequels. Overall, this movie is disapointing if you are a fan but more importantly it is a bad movie in general which should have, and could have been so much better.