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Darth_Revan-83
Reviews
Dragonball Evolution (2009)
This is not an "Evolution"...
I don't often regret seeing movies. I've watched all of Uwe Boll's movies, and... God forgive me... I liked some of them. On the other hand, I've regretted seeing some after-school specials on TV, when I could have been doing some homework, or cleaning my room, or stuff like that. But never has there been such a severe rape of my childhood memories that I actually had to ask for my money back at the cinema.
So, here we are... where do I even begin? Well... let's begin with the running time. Eighty (80) minutes. I thought websites were posting these numbers wrong when I first saw them, but... they weren't. Eighty minutes in which they have to develop a plethora of characters, and shove a story that goes nowhere fast down our throats.
Let me make a personal statement to the guys over at 20th Century. Eighty minutes is NOT FEATURE-LENGTH!! I've seen Cartoon Network shows that air for more then that. Let this phrase set the tone for the rest of my review...
OK so we have Goku, Bulma, Roshi, Piccolo, Mai, Chi-Chi and Yamcha... so... where's Krillin? Let's not regret his loss though, he would have just hogged more of the very scarce screen time.
Goku's character is averagely-written. There are some good scenes with him. Some average scenes... but most are just downright bad. I don't remember him using the Force to open up lockers in his HIGHSCHOOL, do you? I don't remember him fighting bullies from his HIGHSCHOOL, do you? I also think it sort of strange that American high-schoolers just HAPPEN to have katanas. Moving along... Goku's personality doesn't really evolve throughout the movie, he doesn't learn anything worthwhile by the end, and he's sometimes just painful to watch. Justin Chatwin's wretched acting doesn't do Goku justice either. *Emotion*, *Emotion*...
Bulma is possibly the best developed character, and she also gets a reasonable amount of screen time, although she doesn't need half of it. She also "misteriously" falls in love with Yamcha for no particular reason, other than his mere presence. From the MOVIE'S perspective, Bulma and Goku would of made a better pair than Bulma and Yamcha. But obviously if they had done that, we would of crucified the producers.
Master Roshi. He's there. Next character.
Yamcha. He's also there. Next character.
Chi-Chi & Mai. I don't regret saying this: they were not necessary. The ENTIRE film could of been done without these two characters. They had little, if any relevance to the story, and they were horribly underdeveloped.They were also out of place sometimes. Scrapping these two characters could have saved a lot of much needed screen time.
Piccolo. James Masters. Now, I am not personally familiar with any of Mr. Masters' work, but his performance in this movie was way above what the other actors managed to accomplish. The only problem being... he gets less screen time than Mai. I don't need to say more... Okay one more thing: they forgot about him completely at the end of the movie. Nobody told us if he died, or if he survived. Nothing. He just falls down, and that's it. Not to mention the fact that nobody ever explains how he was set free in the first place.
Grandpa Gohan. He also appears, and is portrayed surprisingly well, but is killed off by Piccolo's Force Grip technique about 10 minutes into the movie. Remember that from the anime?
So that's about it for the characters. I should begin to comment on the actual movie now, but... I think people would have gotten the general idea by now. Underdeveloped characters, pointless plot strings, very short runtime, and some of the WORST acting (except James Masters and Randall Duk Kim) and dialog I've seen for a very long time. Uwe Boll is a poet compared to some of the stuff written here.
I wish I could have given this movie more than 2/10. I really did. But it shattered all my childhood concepts of Dragonball, and I can't let it get away with that. Even if it wasn't called "Dragonball", and the characters were all named differently, it would still be one of the most horrible movies I've ever seen.
A longer runtime, i.e. 150 min, would of allowed for more character developing and plot advancement. Removing unnecessary characters would have also allowed for stronger relationships between the viewer and the main cast. But I digress... the damage is done.
(P.s. the two "Force" references I used in this review are obviously intended to be parodies, and not the actual Ki energy used.)
Chris Colorado (2000)
One of the finest cartoons I have ever seen.
It comes as a great surprise to me that this cartoon has seen so little attention from the media. It's original, and to my knowledge only, airing was on Toonami around 2001 on Cartoon Network.The series lasted 24 episodes and it was an exciting action series that changed my perspective on the genre at that time.
The story was what really gripped me, the animations actually reminding me of Asterix and Obelix classic cartoons. Some of the other visuals on other hand, like a handful of dedicated 3D sequences, were of considerably high budget for those times.
The series lasted for a very short time, which rather annoyed me since it left a plethora of unanswered questions that make me scratch my head to this day. What few episodes aired were enthralling. The characters were well written, the soundtrack was amazing, and the overall story quite amazing, especially considering that modern cartoons, no matter how action-oriented they might seem, have a ridiculous number of corny lines and jokes stuffed into them (especially the anime's... ugh).
Perhaps my only criticism (apart from the character animations) would be for the voice acting, but I only saw the English dubbed version, so it's not France's fault there.
In conclusion, this series has been an iconic one for animated action series for me, setting a standard that very few have managed to meet. (Edited on December 2nd 2008, originally June 2006)