I was a fan of Dragonball Z when I was fifteen, but no longer consider myself one; I don't hate it now, I just consider its flaws cumbersome enough to make it unenjoyable. When I heard about a live action adaptation, I was immediately wary. I went into this film hoping that it would be a decent B-movie, or at least bad in an entertaining way.
Easily the greatest failing of this movie is its writing. They clearly had some idea of what a film plot should be, because it involves every cliche action line imaginable ("You're not a normal boy," "You must remember to believe in yourself!" "No, my beloved master is dead!") The real problem is that most movies include the plot elements that cause these cliches to make sense. You'll find none of that here. People just say the "appropriate" action movie lines at the appropriate time, regardless of what has actually happened in the plot up to this point.
The film also includes an amalgam of random, completely meaningless plot pieces that are discarded and never mentioned again. They clearly scripted it by throwing darts at a board. For example, Goku is told by his new master that he must master all three (?) elements. He kinda masters one, then they never mention it again. Goku loses his beloved master fully two times during the course of the film. You get the idea that this was about four scripts at one point that were artlessly merged.
Oh, and the dialogue itself oscillates from laughably terrible to boringly terrible. Again, it's all strung together from cliche scripts of other films.
The second greatest failing of this movie is its internal logic. You won't have to be nitpicking this thing to find enough craziness to shatter your willing suspension of disbelief. For example, the Kamehameha wave is the most powerful air technique. It is a fireball that heals people. Try and wrap your head around that. They also pointlessly call the techniques "bending" just in case you somehow believed that the writers weren't just ripping off other, better media.
The last big failing is that the action isn't any good. It's the most unimaginative and uneventful wire fu imaginable. They couldn't get anything right in this film, and based on the effects they must have pissed away a fortune failing so hard. Big disappointment.
The worst film I have seen in ten years
I was a fan of Dragonball Z when I was fifteen, but no longer consider myself one; I don't hate it now, I just consider its flaws cumbersome enough to make it unenjoyable. When I heard about a live action adaptation, I was immediately wary. I went into this film hoping that it would be a decent B-movie, or at least bad in an entertaining way.
Easily the greatest failing of this movie is its writing. They clearly had some idea of what a film plot should be, because it involves every cliche action line imaginable ("You're not a normal boy," "You must remember to believe in yourself!" "No, my beloved master is dead!") The real problem is that most movies include the plot elements that cause these cliches to make sense. You'll find none of that here. People just say the "appropriate" action movie lines at the appropriate time, regardless of what has actually happened in the plot up to this point.
The film also includes an amalgam of random, completely meaningless plot pieces that are discarded and never mentioned again. They clearly scripted it by throwing darts at a board. For example, Goku is told by his new master that he must master all three (?) elements. He kinda masters one, then they never mention it again. Goku loses his beloved master fully two times during the course of the film. You get the idea that this was about four scripts at one point that were artlessly merged.
Oh, and the dialogue itself oscillates from laughably terrible to boringly terrible. Again, it's all strung together from cliche scripts of other films.
The second greatest failing of this movie is its internal logic. You won't have to be nitpicking this thing to find enough craziness to shatter your willing suspension of disbelief. For example, the Kamehameha wave is the most powerful air technique. It is a fireball that heals people. Try and wrap your head around that. They also pointlessly call the techniques "bending" just in case you somehow believed that the writers weren't just ripping off other, better media.
The last big failing is that the action isn't any good. It's the most unimaginative and uneventful wire fu imaginable. They couldn't get anything right in this film, and based on the effects they must have pissed away a fortune failing so hard. Big disappointment.