Dragonball: Evolution

Dragonball: Evolution is a 2009 American action-adventure science fantasy film directed by James Wong of The X-Files, Space: Above and Beyond and Final Destination fame. The film is based on the Japanese Dragon Ball manga by Akira Toriyama as well as Toei's 1986-1989 anime series, and stars Justin Chatwin, Emmy Rossum, James Marsters, Jamie Chung, Chow Yun-fat, Joon Park and Eriko Tamura.

Contents

 * 1Plot
 * 2Why It Sucks
 * 3Redeeming Qualities
 * 4Reception
 * 5Trivia
 * 6Videos
 * 7External links
 * 8Comments

Plot
On his 18th birthday, Goku (Justin Chatwin) receives a mystical Dragonball as a gift from his grandfather. There are only six others like it in the whole world, and legend has it that whomever possesses all seven will be granted one perfect wish. When the arrival of a dark force triggers a tragedy, Goku and his companions (Chow Yun-Fat, Emmy Rossum) are propelled into an epic quest to collect the seven Dragonballs and save the Earth from destruction.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) Very, very poor acting, such as Justin Chatwin and Emmy Rossum, who are laughable as the iconic characters Goku and Bulma.
 * 2) Terrible fight choreography. For example, in one fight, Goku somehow slides across a car using his head.
 * 3) The film doesn't follow the plot of both the manga and the anime series at all.
 * 4) Extremely poor grasp of the source material. For example:
 * 5) * In the original manga and anime, Goku is a naive 12-year-old kid who has no idea what a girl is and never had any proper schooling, but in this film, Goku is an angsty 18-year-old high school student who already has a crush on Chi-Chi (Chung). He also is a disrespectful team captain who is racist and sings in high school instead of the iconic character from the show.
 * 6) * In a scene where Goku uses the Kamehameha, he randomly starts flying up into Lord Piccolo for no reason whatsoever.
 * 7) * Oozaru in this film barely even resembles himself from the manga and anime series, and is smaller in comparison to his originally gargantuan size.
 * 8) * Master Roshi using the Kamehameha wave to revive Goku after he gets shot by one of the villains.
 * 9) * Goku learns about airbending of all things, which blatantly rips off Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * 10) * Goku gets killed by an ordinary bullet, while in both the original manga and the anime series, bullets barely affected him to the point where they felt like mere bee stings.
 * 11) Awful special effects, especially for the dragon Shenron and Lord Piccolo's airship.
 * 12) Unlikeable characters like Carey Fuller, Goku's bully being the worst offender.
 * 13) Lots of clichéd and laughable dialogue and awful writing.
 * 14) The terrible CGI is completely obvious as mentioned above, and so are the green-screen backgrounds.
 * 15) The movie is filled with plot holes aplenty, like how Lord Piccolo escaped from his prison.
 * 16) All of the characters are grossly miscast and look nothing like their original counterparts.
 * 17) On the subject of that, the film was accused of whitewashing by casting Chatwin (a white actor) in the role of Goku (who was originally an alien but considered to be of Asian type).
 * 18) The romance between Goku and Chi-Chi is like that from a teen drama show on The CW.
 * 19) Many of the characters from the original series are completely absent, such as Launch, Krillin, Vegeta and Emperor Pilaf.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Good soundtrack composed by Brian Tyler.
 * 2) Chow Yun-fat is pretty good as Master Roshi, even if he doesn't even remotely look like his original counterpart.
 * 3) James Marsters is actually pretty good as Lord Piccolo. He is a huge fan of the Dragon Ball series and you can tell he had a lot of fun playing Lord Piccolo. He would later go on to voice Zamasu in Dragon Ball Super (under the credit of David Gray).

Reception
Dragonball: Evolution was met with extremely negative reception from critics, viewers, fans, particularly for its script, cast, and unfaithfulness to the source material. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 15% approval rating based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 3.5/10. The site's consensus states, "Executed with little panache or invention, Dragonball Evolution lacks the magic that made the books on which it was based a cult sensation.". On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on reviews from 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade C+ on scale of A to F.

Akira Toriyama himself, who commissioned the production of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' years after this movie's release. Screenwriter Ben Ramsey has since apologized for the film, saying that "to have something with my name on it as the writer be so globally reviled is gut wrenching. To receive hate mail from all over the world is heartbreaking".

It is also YouTube film reviewer Chris Stuckmann's (a big fan of Dragonball) most hated film of all time, leading him to do three reviews on it.

The fan backlash was so severe that it convinced Akira Toriyama to start working on two new Dragon Ball Z films, which eventually led to the creation of Dragon Ball Super, the sequel series to Dragon Ball Z.

Trivia

 * The Playstation Portable game adaptation of the movie contains extra plot details closer to the original manga: most notably, Goku is confirmed to be called Kakarot, being a Saiyan from Planet Vegeta. Those elements not being mentioned in the movie, it is possible it was based on an early draft.