Dragonball: Evolution: A not-so-quick review.

Movie: "Dragonball: Evolution"
Year: 2009
Rated: PG-13
Genre: Action, stupid
Director: James Wong
Writer(s): James Wong, Ben Ramsey.
Based on the Manga by Akira Toriyama.

In a misguided attempt to find a bad movie to mock, my friend, Stephen and I rented the live-action adaptation no one was really asking for; Dragonball: Evolution.

Surprising as it may be, I have never really been a Dragonball fan. I have never read any of the manga (manga is by and large something I yet to fully embrace) and I've watch only about a dozen episodes of DBZ, a few from GT and none of the original series. I know only the basics: the character names and, in the broadest sense, the premise.

Now, this shouldn't be a problem. Any decent adaptation will take it's time to tell you what you should know, and why you should know it. Who is who and what they do. Most importantly and utterly essential, why you should care about anything that is happening on screen.

Confusion starts to set in after about 5 minutes. After a pointless fight scene, Goku; the film's protagonist, and Goku's grandfather; the film's protagonist's grandfather, start to talk about the power and purpose of the Dragonballs. Whoa, wait a minute... Who are you people? Where are we? How can you do all those cool martial arts moves? Is this the future? The past? Is this even Earth? I guess so, because that's what the prologue said. Besides that, none of these questions are answers.

Needless to say, I kept asking Stephen; a big fan of Dragonball, questions during almost every scene trying desperately to make heads or tails of the mess I was viewing. He assured me that everything was either completely changed or changed only slightly, but still, bared no real resemblance to any of the DB's original incarnations.

To go further into this movie's plot would be like walking into a black hole. Why? Essentially, there is none. A random sequence of events occur in order to create this movie. Is any of it related to each other? Is there any semblance of narrative story-line running through it? Will we ever get an expository scene explaining (or, over explaining as these things usually go) what the fuck is going on? Sorta, not really, and no.

To make matter worse; not only does this movie have no plot but it has no action. Nothing really happens. Nothing... at... all... and thing's get boring. V E R Y B O R I N G.

I will give this movie 2 points for the following: It's short and feels short. A meaningless sense of pride washed over me when I figure out a glaringly obvious plot point about 20 minutes before it occurred.

Not being a DB fan all I can really say is this movie is lame. That's it. I don't feel like any part of me has been hurt in anyway or that anything I hold close was cut to pieces. I just feel bored. Bored with the luck luster fight scenes, vacant plot, and acting that ranged from over-the-top to underwhelming at best. I want this movie out of my system and hopefully this review will help, although I not sure how necessary it is for that. A good night's sleep or a cold soda could purge this movie from you. In a word: Forgettable.