DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION

ENGLISH - (PG13) - 12 March 2009 - Action
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Running time: about 86 mins.
Director: James Wong
Producers: James Wong, Stephen Chow
Writers: James Wong, Ben Ramsey, Akira Toriyama (manga)
Casts: Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Chow Yun-Fat, Jamie Chung, Emmy Rossum, Joon Park, Eriko Tamura
Plot: Based on the popular Japanese manga created by Akira Toriyama whose work spawned best-selling graphic novels, video games and a phenomenally successful television series, "Dragonball" centres on the heroic Goku, a powerful warrior who protects the Earth from an endless stream of rogues bent on dominating the Universe and controlling the mystical objects from which the film takes its name.

THE VERDICT:

Green Tea says:

WARNING SPOILER! Dragonball is not something synonym with me but I do enjoy the anime that was shown on TV2 every weekend morning during my adolescent period. However, when the plan to adapt it into a bigger screen had caused me to ponder a while - will it works well? Of course, I do not want to shatter your heart but the reality is it did not did well at all.

Goku as portrayed by some blonde (mind you, not Japanese), did not really fit the bill. However the story goes that we see Goku had been tenderly been nurtured by his 'grandfather' and trained him well in martial art. One day, he decided to pass on the mysterious Dragonball or Orb to Goku and entrusted him to protect it. However, things get haywired when Piccolo has escaped and returned to continue his evil plan, however he need the all 7 orbs to do so. Anyway, the story continues from there.

The story wise is been great at the first part of the movie. Although general may think that casting Justin Chatwin as Goku may seems odd and not up to expectation. However, the plots and dialogues were okay. Even at the early part, even Chow Yun Fat in the womanizer Master Rishi try so hard to be a comedic of all time but nevertheless still bearable. The turning point of the story, when this somehow a desert bandit called YamCha came in and the story goes messy and boring. The plot just experience some free fall and it plunge until no returns. Blame the comedic nature they tried to create or some unorganized and confusing crosspaths on the story. The character development is largely ignored and the story pace is too fast and kind of hard to relate to each other.

As I said, the acting was not bad although you can easily uttered your disgusts here and there. Goku seems unnatural especially with his magical chant boom "Kame Hame Ha..." - it's weird and sounds too American, well he is don't he. Rishi was comedic but may be sometimes over-act. Lord Piccolo didn't have much personas of his own and tend to be so mute, as if he has a limited dialogue to say. Chi Chi was underperfomed while Bulma and YamCha quickly develop into a sense of their own while been illogical.

It's again the use of special effects. I heard some rants that you can only see fireballs smashing around and the shaky camera scenes did its annoying trick again. Some fireball flying scenes were too shaky and you barely can really indulge in it. The cinematographic features of the wild Goku's world was excellent but no where near awesome. I think too much special effects hurt the film. Yes, it is a cartoonic film. However, the kind of fighting with non-sense act of gibberish chants and fireballs smashing around prove to be a bit lame.

What can I say, it just another movie from Hollywood!!

THE RATINGS.....

CAST - 2.0 stars

STORY - 1.5 stars

CINEMATOGRAPHY - 3.0 stars

EFFECTS - 3.0 stars

an overall>> 2.0 stars

GreenTea-O-Meter: 8.4