So- Dragonball: Evolution. Not as bad as it might have been. But still not good. Almost anyone paying attention to pop culture over the past couple of decades will have at least a passing familiarity with the Dragonball franchise. Originally begun in the 80's as a routine offering in the Japanese boys weekly illustrated Shonen Jump, the Little Manga That Could Not Be Stopped went on to run for ten years in its original form, comprising hundreds of installments. Despite or perhaps because of a very simple story frame about a monkey-tailed boy and his companions searching for the eponymous magical artifacts that will allow them to summon a wish-granting dragon, both the manga and its various anime spinoffs are among the most popular titles in the history of their respective media, early workhorses of what was becoming an exploding global genre.
Whetever your opinion of its other merits, it is indisputably a very "cartoony" anime, aimed squarely at 8-13 year olds, who want to see manifestly unreal characters (just on their hair alone) beat the crap out of each other with their OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!-level abilities for at least 20 minutes each episode. As you might imagine, it does not translate well out of a cartoon world. The attempted live-action Mandarin adaptation from 20 years ago was notoriously poorly received.
Casting caution to the wind, director James Wong (Final Destination, The One) has tried it again. Justin Chatwin (War of the Worlds, Josie and the Pussycats) takes one for the team as Goku (sans tail) on the trail of Piccolo (James Marsters, Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer) who killed his kindly Grandpa Gohan while seeking the Dragonball Gohan had given Goku just that night! Joining him on his quest are Bulma, played by Emmy Rossum, doubtlessly experiencing severe culture shock coming to this after playing Christine in 2004's Phantom of the Opera, and, astonishingly, Yun-Fat Chow (Bulletproof Monk), taking a DeNiro-like late career turn at broad comedy as Master Roshi after playing a stone-faced badass in seemingly every John Woo movie ever made.
Everyone gives it a game effort, including Jamie Chung bringing the cuteness as Goku's love interest Chi-Chi and Joon Park as Yamcha inserting his formidable brow into the fray alongside Chatwin's admirably trapezoidal head, but the whole enterprise was doomed from the start. Over 100 million copies of the manga sold must have been a tempting ready audience for the producer (Stephen Chow, Kung Fu Hustle), but a protracted production history dating back to at least 2002 and online hate parades for the project for nearly that entire time tell the story. There was no way to bring this to the screen as an entertaining effort in itself, and anyone who cares enough about the property to want to see it on that basis will probably just be angered by the results. Your enjoyment for this movie will vary directly with your tolerance of CGI-generated displays of qi power.
Highlights: Goku's entirely evasive beatdown of the school bullies and his early attempt to tame the Goku hair. In fact, the progression of said hair from proto- to full Goku (within the constraints of real-world physics) over the course of the story is queerly fascinating. Also worth catching is the extra feature explaining a fight scene Jamie Chung has with herself, thus forcing everyone to use the phrase "Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi fight" over and over again.
Extras: Director Wong and everyone else wisely eschew a voice-over commentary, and the extras generally are sparse: A few bloopers and deleted scenes, the video for the main soundtrack song, and a couple of segments produced for the Fox Movie channel with Chatwin being interviewed by film students and the aforementioned fight scene analysis. The only interactive bit is a feature called Goku's Game wherein if you press a button on your remote each time a Dragonball symbol appears in the play-through of the movie, Grandpa Gohan will appear and give the diligent watcher a special prize. What that may be, I leave for the truly, truly dedicated to discover. Good luck, young Saiyan warrior.
ComicsOnline gives Dragonball: Evolution 2 out of 5 Dragonballs
Presentation: 5.1 Dolby DTS-HD audio in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. Main feature also subtitled in Mandarin and Cantonese. 2.4:1 aspect ratio. Z Edition includes separate disc for portable media.
Rated PG. 85 min.
