Dragonball is arguably the best manga/anime ever made. It has an immense amount of popularity that has transcended cultures and become a profitable mainstream commodity worldwide. It has stood the test of time and has been a great inspiration to so many after it.
With that said, this movie is a travesty to the product name. The rich characters and carefully crafted story of the manga are carelessly shotgunned onto the screen. The dialog is poor, the acting never gets any better than what we'd find on a mediocre evening kids show, the CG bounces unevenly between barely passable and awful, and most importantly, the fight scenes (and lack of) just plain stink.
Dragonball has always been about being epic and larger than life. One glance at the cartoon would demonstrate how they would spend a ridiculous amount of time on building up a fight and then pay it all off with a great one. The manga was always about fantastical ideas, crazy fighting styles, even crazier special moves, and the all important which fighter is stronger debate that was made exponentially better once power levels got involved in DBZ. Simply put, none of this magic was brought over, and too much time is spent on things Dragonball was never known for. Dragonball was never about romance, as it was about family, friendship, and respect.
In fact, the Goku/Chi Chi relationship was never emphasized in the comic and always took a back seat to the important matters at hand, like saving the world and working together to accomplish that. The film must have spent like 25% of the time trying to build up this relationship when the manga might have spent 0.1%. I honestly do not believe this kind of lowest common denominator to attract the interest of the female audience was necessary at all. Dragonball never had trouble creating a fan base, so this really feels like one of the many big missteps of the film.
In terms of the characters, they really made a mistake in blending the young and old Goku of the original story, which resulted in one that just seems unlikable. Goku was always a bit goofy and was certainly flawed, but he was never a dope like the one we see here. People not familiar with the manga will probably come off with absolutely no idea why Goku is so well adored by all the fans. Next, the ultimate bad boy Piccolo is completely underused with very little screen time. Yamcha is nothing like the one we know, and is made to be a bad comic relief of some sort. Chow Yun Fat's Roshi is close to unwatchable. You cannot blame Chow Yun Fat for trying his best, but he's just a terrible miscast for the role. Fat does the cool stuff well, but this stuff just isn't in his nature, and it shows. Rossum's Bulma actually comes off alright and is probably the best character adaptation out of all of them. She looks great in the role and does pretty much everything you'd expect out of Bulma.
Dragonball is the crown jewel of the manga/anime business, which makes it only that much more disappointing that the people involved with this film clearly did not understand what people liked so much about it in the first place. It plays like a B-movie with D-class quality in everything except budget. Fortunately, Dragonball is just too big for even this big tub of junk to cause any long lasting hurt to the franchise.
With that said, this movie is a travesty to the product name. The rich characters and carefully crafted story of the manga are carelessly shotgunned onto the screen. The dialog is poor, the acting never gets any better than what we'd find on a mediocre evening kids show, the CG bounces unevenly between barely passable and awful, and most importantly, the fight scenes (and lack of) just plain stink.
Dragonball has always been about being epic and larger than life. One glance at the cartoon would demonstrate how they would spend a ridiculous amount of time on building up a fight and then pay it all off with a great one. The manga was always about fantastical ideas, crazy fighting styles, even crazier special moves, and the all important which fighter is stronger debate that was made exponentially better once power levels got involved in DBZ. Simply put, none of this magic was brought over, and too much time is spent on things Dragonball was never known for. Dragonball was never about romance, as it was about family, friendship, and respect.
In fact, the Goku/Chi Chi relationship was never emphasized in the comic and always took a back seat to the important matters at hand, like saving the world and working together to accomplish that. The film must have spent like 25% of the time trying to build up this relationship when the manga might have spent 0.1%. I honestly do not believe this kind of lowest common denominator to attract the interest of the female audience was necessary at all. Dragonball never had trouble creating a fan base, so this really feels like one of the many big missteps of the film.
In terms of the characters, they really made a mistake in blending the young and old Goku of the original story, which resulted in one that just seems unlikable. Goku was always a bit goofy and was certainly flawed, but he was never a dope like the one we see here. People not familiar with the manga will probably come off with absolutely no idea why Goku is so well adored by all the fans. Next, the ultimate bad boy Piccolo is completely underused with very little screen time. Yamcha is nothing like the one we know, and is made to be a bad comic relief of some sort. Chow Yun Fat's Roshi is close to unwatchable. You cannot blame Chow Yun Fat for trying his best, but he's just a terrible miscast for the role. Fat does the cool stuff well, but this stuff just isn't in his nature, and it shows. Rossum's Bulma actually comes off alright and is probably the best character adaptation out of all of them. She looks great in the role and does pretty much everything you'd expect out of Bulma.
Dragonball is the crown jewel of the manga/anime business, which makes it only that much more disappointing that the people involved with this film clearly did not understand what people liked so much about it in the first place. It plays like a B-movie with D-class quality in everything except budget. Fortunately, Dragonball is just too big for even this big tub of junk to cause any long lasting hurt to the franchise.
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