Customer Ratings & Reviews

It is not an actual adaptation of any thing resembling DB. For me though it is so bad its almost good

Since 2002, me and many other Dragonball fans around the world have feverishly anticipated the release of a live action adaptation of one of the most beloved anime franchises the world over. The idea of a live action Dragonball movie brings so much potential to the table, and really changes the perspective of film making in bringing an anime to life, and bringing fantasy to life in a whole new way. This should have been something we have never seen before, it should have been aw-inspiring, captivating, and capturing the very essence of the Dragonball series that so many people have grown up with and come to expect. Sadly, Dragonball Evolution is perhaps one of the worst movies I have ever laid my eyes on. Not only is this movie a wretched failure from a "fan" point of view since I am a fan of the material, but also as someone who loves and watches movies, and pays attention to Hollywood. Within the last two years, we have seen some truely great films including. The Dark Knight, Iron Man, No Country for Old Men, Transformers, There Will Be Blood, Slumdog Millionaire, and many many more that would take up too much of this review. With Dragonball Evolution, it takes all of the high calbur oscar-worthy/winning acting, and high grade special effects and production values, and pretty much takes it out with one destructive "air-bending" Ka-Me-Ha-Me-Ha(a little inside joke on the movie). The movie is so out of touch with its source material, this movie can hardly be called "Dragonball". Outside of name-sake(or Marque value) such as Dragonballs, Goku, Bulma, Yamcha, Shenlong, Ma-fu-ba(sealing technique for Piccolo), Piccolo, Grampa Gohan, Mai, Chi Chi, Master Roshi, Oozaru, and the Ka-Me-Ha-Me-Ha. This movie has next to nothing to do with the original story and characters. Even if I was not a fan of the Dragoball series, and did'nt know what it was, I still would have found this movie attrociously bad. The movie has so many problems, it's hard to list them all, because some just don't make any sense, or they are so confusing, it's really hard to put any of the movie into a coherent perspective. I'll start with the performances of the actors. Simply put, Abysmal. They deliver pointless dialogue, have pointless scenes, no chemistry outside of boy-like-girl love interest, and lets you know you're watching a bad movie and nothing else. The actors are either un-interesting, extremely campy, or the dialogue is so horrendous you just cringe at it. You would think with an actor like Chow Yun Fat on board, this movie would have some deceny to it. But sadly no, his performance may be one of the worst of his career. Goku(Justin Chatwin) is beyond un-compelling. He's just anger inducing to see him portray Goku in such poor character. Lusting after girls affections, wanting popularity, picked on by bullies for no reasonable explanation. Gag me with a spoon. The story makes little sense. 2,000 years ago, Piccolo with his disciple the "Oozaru"(that's right, not even calling him a "Saiyan") tried to destroy/take over the world but was thwarted by monks and Piccolo was sealed away. Without any explanation, Piccolo is free from his prison, has Mai(his hench-woman) at his side(who by the way has no back story to explain how/why she's with him), he's in an air-ship. And we are given no explanation throughout the film on his full intentions, or anything else relating to his character. Also, he has the shortest amount of screentime of the movie, totaling 5 scenes. Meanwhile Goku is turing 18, gets a dragonball from Gohan, and Goku is somehow involved this cliched prophecy with an eclipse that relates to Piccolo wanting to destroy/take over the world for no reason what so ever. Later on with the final battle of the film is where the continuity of the film throws its hands in the air and walks away from the movie. Piccolo is somehow able to control the "Oozaru" side of Goku, and that Goku is the "Oozaru" from 2,000 years ago who served Piccolo. There's absolutely no explanation at all as to how Piccolo is manipulating Gokus transformation, or how he even knows that he's a Sayain. Or if Goku is the Oozaru, then what the heck is going on? And if Goku is 18, then how was he alive 2000 years ago serving Piccolo? It's a total mind meltdown. The movie is just full of continuity problems that plague the film from the main plot, to the character sub-plots that amount to absolutely nothing and have no sort of resolution. The special effects are horridly done, there's so much wire work you could swear they worked in a circus. And it's just a completely un-interesting film. The acting is laughable and completely unbelieveable in any sense, the fighting and special effects are poorly done and look unconvincing, and overall boring. The story and plots are poorly written, confusing, and even leave a fan of the series like myself, completely lost in the continuity issues that plague this film. This is easily one of the worst films FOX Studios has ever produced based on a major worldwide franchise. Do not buy this movie, it is a waste of time, and a complete disgrace to the series many fans know and love. But this is also an insult to people wanting to see a good movie, you're going to have to look elsewhere because this movie has no entertainment value to speak of. Overall, this movie is about as cliche as you can possibly get by ripping off of better movies like Spiderman and the Matrix, but also being totally un-original, and just making no sense what so ever with its story, characters, and relating to the Dragonball series.

A good fantasy adventure movie. Based on the Japanese Manga "Dragonball", this is a cartoon brought to the big screen. OK, this review is based exclusively on the movie as I haven't seen nor read any of the original Manga mateials. I really enjoyed the story and this was well made. I specially enjoyed the character Chi-chi. The reason for giving a 3 is that the story was a bit simple and the build-up to the big closing scene was too easy; perhaps this is a side effect of using a manga as your basis. Yes, I will watch this movie again in the future and do recommend it. P.S. Nice to see Chow Yun Fat in the movie.

****Somewhat SPOILER ALERT**** Many people are upset about this movie not following the true DB storyline. Granted, at first I agreed! However, I watched the movie a second time with an open mind, reminding myself that none of the comic/cartoon-to-live action have been on point. This includes when the original writer is there on set and involved in every part of production. This was the case here! Mr. Akira Toriyama was apart of the this movie. He approved its release! So............ This movie captures some of the corny scripts that made DB what it was! As another commentator pointed out, we have been conditioned into waiting for things to happen week after week after week (sometimes MONTHS). This movie compresses a week into less than 90min! They introduce the main major characters in the first movie! While somewhat altered, they still managed to do it, unlike our beloved X-Men! There was nothing NEW in the special effects used, but still did a GREAT job using them. While most of the actors are fairly new to the US, they all did a GREAT job capturing that DB spirit. Face it, DB (as translated into English) NEVER had a great script! But that is what made DB so great! Bottom line....Remove everything you know about DB! Expect a general audience script. Add some decent special effects. You will be left with a decent movie. They just could have spent another 30min+ developing the story a little more. We have been conditioned for 2-3 hours for "epic" movies! I will buy this movie on Blu-Ray just to see detail that was placed into some of the scenes! BTW - I am a father of 2 boys (with one on the way) that LOVES DB! I will save the AXE for the sequel!

So I've had this movie a month and it's not overly memorable outside of the fact that it does transition from a Karate Kid high school movie to a fighting movie pretty quick or at least fast enough. I've never really watched the cartoons though I am somewhat familiar with the characters so the transitions and key points I caught on to. Let's just say the back says enough about the movie. Price wise 10-15.00 is a good price for a blu ray otherwise rent it and judged for yourself. Even if you're a fan of the toon's I'd say give it a view first before buying. Is it as good as Mortal Kombat-no. Is it as bad as Street Fighter with Jean Claude-also no lol. It's in between. Lot of hopeful young actors with potential we'll see where they go. Will there be a sequel god I hope not or at least I won't be seeing it at the theater or buying the dvd. But once again that's my opinion anybody else feel free to make an observation.

Dragonball Evolution is a pretty decent movie it has a certain charm to it like something you saw when you were little and you thought was cool i must say though i am a HUGE dragonball Fanboy and i had the feeling of dragonball when i saw this movie but an adaptation comes with changes this movie has alot of changes but all dragonball fans have seen the same story line and plot many many times in the manga anime and even the video games this story blends the central story elements with some new ones which made it a fresh dragonball experience i personally really liked the movie and fans should give it a chance the special effects are actually pretty good for a movie that ran off of a 45 million dollar budget which is really low but i strongly suggest you look past the changes and accept the movie as something new to the Dragonball universe

This movie ruined the Dragonball franchise beyond repair. The people who made this movie should go to jail for this. It is really that bad, I am NOT exaggerating. I have been waiting for years for someone to make a film based off of this series. It could have been what the Lord of the Rings movies were to Tolkien fans or what the Harry Potter films were to those fans, but alas it was a piece of garbage. They didn't keep anything from the original story and created their own story based off of a bunch of clichés from past movies. They didn't even do the clichés very well. This film was so horribly done and looked so cheap that I suspect that they decided to make a low budget gutter film in an attempt to dupe the fans out of their money. I hope this film fails and that these people learn their lesson.

First off this is not Dragon Ball Z rather Dragon Ball. People are expecting huge fight scenes and ki blasts and everything. But what was DB really about, it was more about adventure looking for the Dragon Balls before somebody evil does. In the Z timeframe 13 episodes is 5 minutes. While fights lasted in DB as long as up to 8 episodes give or take, the fight scene in this movie pretty much fits the bill. So please when watching this movie, expect Dragon Ball, not Dragon Ball Z. And go into the movie with an open mind rather than expecting something to be big, if you do that you will see the similarity between this and the anime.

This movie truly is horrible. The story was poorly translated and, the action was absolutely nothing stellar. Truly a waste of time. This was a series created in the 1980s with exceptional stoy telling and action scenes, This is 2009 in the USA and the movie certainly did not match up to the show's charisma, that captivated millions, at all. Which is why it was pulled out of theaters and got the poor treatment by majority of fans and others, which it deserved. A VERY cliche and rushed storyline. Dragonball Evolution was child abuse, it felt like it was written by the director's five year old with crayola crayons. Seriously the dialogue, even for a PG rated movie was PRETTY CHEESY. This movie is like the demon child of Power Rangers and High School Musical (Without the music.) You really should save your money for something truly worthwhile and has a shred of effort put into it. The only good thing was one fight scene at the party, and that was thebest fight scene.

this movie has to be one of the worst adaptations i have ever seen in my life not even uwe boll's video game based movies are this bad. To start they butchered all the character's personalty's for an example Goku the pure hearted warrior has been turned into a whiny emo git & bulma has turned into greedy gunslinger. the story for this movie is a rambled mess full of plot holes i couldn't help but feel disgusted with almost every scene. every copy of this movie should be sent back back to fox with a sign that says we don't take garbage. all and all this movie is an insult to akira toriyamma's dragonball series

Good movie, although I didn't like a few things in it. One being that Goku is a teenager in the movie, rather than a little kid and the other is the fact that Oozaru and Goku were one person, added to that is the fact Goku's not an Alien like in the Anime adaption of Dragon Ball. And the the capsules used in this movie were nothing like the ones being used in the anime at all

This movie has nothing to do with dragonball except the title. The worst part is that the characters are the oposite of the anime, like goku that has no confidence and goes to school, bulma swinging with guns, yamcha that can't fight. The fact that the look of the characters are totally different from the original story doesn't bother me that much, but changing their personality is just horrible. People also say that this is a film adaptation, but a film adaptation must stay as close as possible to the source, what is not in dragonball evolution. Akira Toriyama (the creator of dragonball/z/gt) didn't like this movie either. If you are a hardcore dragonballfan, I don't recomend you to buy this movie because it has nothing to do with dragonball at all. If you know nothing about dragonball, then I still advice you to watch another movie, because this movie will not entertain you.

This has to be one of the worse adaptations i have ever seen! not even Uwe Bolls video game based movies are this bad. This movie has no charm that the original dragon ball had. They turned Goku into a perverted cheating "emo" git , Yamcha acts like Jar Jar Binks, Piccolo barely does anything and for some reason has jedi powers and summons puddy soldiers, Bulma acts like a lara croft wantabe . I think every copy of this movie should be burred in a hole like that atari ET game it is that bad.

For anyone who likes anime/manga this movie is something that you need to watch. Just keep an open mind about it and you'll more than likely enjoy it. Many people aren't willing to give it a chance because it's not like the original dragonball. That's pretty much true, but it's different and there's nothing wrong with that. When in fact if you watch some of the anime turned live action movies from Japan, they too don't exactly do everything in the anime and bring it to the movies. And one more thing seriously don't listen to other people who say it stinks I've seen it almost 20x and I still haven't gotten bored with it.

the ending sucked piccolo was taken out with a kamahamaha blast and that was it worse 1hr 25 minutes of my life do not buy this this does not stay true to the series them making a sequel to this garbage hurts my feelings

Since i was young i loved the show, and the movie was excellent with following the characters personalities. Its great that its not like the usual you watch these days. It brings you in a different world. There are comical scenes that were events explained in the show. What seemed upsetting to me was how badly people are destroying this movie's reputation. keep in mind that it does not follow the show perfectly, but the creator told everyone he wanted to make his own story. besides, what movies follow books and shows perfectly anyway? the special effects were amazing and I out of many haters, loved this movie.

Dragon Ball Evolution is a preety good movie i am a hardcore Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan and seeing how people bashed it online i was worried on how good was the movie and i was surprised on how good it was yes people were saying if you like this movie your not a Dragon Ball fan but just because i like the movie doesnt make me into more or less of a fan its this movie was like the first batman imo so guy Dragon Ball Evolution this film was intended for children thats why its PG which most already like 20-30 years old but still a good film depending which movies you like.

The people that dont like this movie just dont understand that its not the original story. They call it dragon ball evolution because its different. I loved all of the dragonball series growing up, and this movie is nothing short of awesome for a fan of the series. It has all of your favorite charecters(except Krillin) and follows the story for the most part but makes it more modern with vehicles and the way teens act.

Not only that this movie has nothing to do with the original Dragonball but the quality of the movie was very low. Cheap action, even with Chow Yun-Fat from Crouching Tiger. The only plus was to have Jamie Chung on chi-chi,she was hot in this film.

lame and boring this movie should never had been made thats how bad it is now the whole db dbz dbgt uinverse is destroyed thanks to justin chatwin